


Every Purpose under Heaven

by jenlcb



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: Adoption, Catholic Guilt, Date Rape, Discussion of Abortion, Divorce, F/M, Physical Abuse, Religion, Star-crossed, Teen Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-10-15 19:11:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 56,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10556230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenlcb/pseuds/jenlcb
Summary: Sam leaps into the life of a small-town student teacher, and his seemingly mediocre mission ultimately has monumental ramifications on his own fate.





	1. PART 1: Spitballing (May 1972)

Sam Beckett's eyes were closed tight against the brilliant, flashing blue lights that threatened to blind him.

When the tingling stopped and the blue lights subsided, he realized his eyes were still open, and he was looking down at an open book. The numbness and the lights were temporarily forgotten. His concentration was broken by a small, stinging object striking his face. Looking up, he was startled to see six rows of six teenagers sitting at desks. Some were laughing quietly, their hands over their mouths, sheepish expressions on their faces. Most were looking at a particular boy with annoyance.

Sam’s eyes wandered to the boy in question. He was dressed in a tattered brown leather jacket, t-shirt and ripped blue jeans. The boy was slouched at his desk, his chin down. He was looking up at Sam with a cocky and unpleasant half smirk on his face. He was definitely up to something.

Sam remembered the object striking his face, and if his Swiss-cheesed memory did not fail him, he seemed to recall a similar situation from his own past. Only then, he had not been standing at the front of the room. He had been sitting by himself in the last row, in the corner desk closest to the door. He had just made a particularly intelligent remark in biology—no, physics class. And this had led to his being pelted about the face and head with ... what were those things? Oh, yeah, spitballs.

Having a point of reference now, Sam's eyes turned to the boy's desk, and sure enough, he saw a small mound of little white paper balls. The boy was not even trying to cover them up. In fact, he actually picked one up, staring directly at Sam, put the paper ball into his mouth, took it out again, and defiantly flicked it in Sam’s direction.

Slowly picking the spitball out of his hair, Sam chose this moment to reflect on his life (or what he could remember of it). It didn’t seem right, somehow, that a Nobel-prize-winning physicist, medical doctor, concert pianist, and overall multilingual Don Quixote type, who was chosen by some higher force he could not identify, to leap back and forth throughout his own lifetime, putting things right that once went wrong in the lives of dozens of people, presumably for the greater good of all humanity, should be standing In front of a room full of high schoolers, suffering the slings and spitballs of an obnoxious juvenile delinquent. What had he ever done to deserve this? Hadn't he already paid his dues for his nerdiness when he was in high school the first time?

After this brief moment of self-pity, which he seldom awarded himself, he realized he was the center of attention, so he was probably expected to say something. He opened his mouth to say something, having no idea what might come out, when he was mercifully interrupted by a voice from the back of the room:

"Mr. Cooke, I’d like to see you after class, please. Carry on, Mr. Hunter."

Clues number 1 and 2: His name was Mr. Hunter. The balding, distinguished looking man in the blue suit and bow tie was looking right at him with a mixture of pity, admiration, and mutual irritation. The boy’s last name was Cooke.

Now all he had to do was figure out just what he was expected to carry on _with_.

He heard a girl clear her throat politely in the front row. Her hand was raised and he was smiling sympathetically at him. She as a sweet-looking, dark-haired girl, wearing what almost looked like a Catholic school-girl uniform: a green and navy plaid jumper, white blouse, black oxford shoes, whit bobby socks, and a green headband. He awkwardly nodded at her, bidding her speak.

The girl said quietly but with conviction, “The second law of thermodynamics is delta-Q over T equals entropy, which is a measure of disorder. It means that entropy in the universe can _increase_ over time but it can never decrease. Like, an ice cube will melt into water, but a puddle of water will never turn into an ice cube. A glass pitcher might spontaneously shatter into a million pieces, but a million pieces of glass will never spontaneously form into a pitcher. It basically means that by nature, time flows in a way that _increases_ disorder, not the other way around.”

Sam’s eyes widened. It had suddenly become clearer who he was. Just to check, he lowered his eyes and, for the first time, really looked at the book in his hands. His right index finger was still pointing to a passage in the book marked “2nd Law of Thermodynamics.” He looked at the front cover of the book, which was titled “Advanced Physics for the High School Student.”

Sam looked up, feeling somewhat pleased and said breathlessly, but not so quietly, “I’m a physics teacher!”

The entire class laughed. The dark-haired girl blushed and smiled. Sam mentally kicked himself. His memory not only frequently failed him regarding events of history and his own lifetime, it also failed him in some of the basic rules of social interaction. However, if he remembered right, he never had been much of the socialite himself. Geniuses like him often placed themselves in voluntary exile from other human beings, which made it difficult to learn the intricacies of normal conversation. Leaping into the lives of so many different people seemed almost a punishment for all those years of not interacting properly with people like them.

Or perhaps it was an education and a second chance to learn.

A sudden shrill ringing made Sam jump. The class laughed again, but this time Sam recognized that they were laughing with him and not at him. The students filed out of the classroom and Sam overheard some of them muttering unflattering things about someone who “thinks she’s so smart” and “has to constantly show off.”

It didn’t take a genius to deduce who they were referring to.

Sam was already wondering what he was there to do. His first instinct told him he was there to help this young girl make friends. She looked younger than the rest of the teenagers and her apparent understanding of thermodynamics, along with the remarks he’d overheard, told him she was of above-average intelligence at the very least, and not especially well-liked, at least by these kids.

The girl didn’t stop to talk to any of them. In fact, she seemed to be holding back until the rest of the class had left. The punk in the leather jacket was the only one who was paying her any attention but this didn’t seem to please her. He was standing by her desk, glaring at her impatiently.

“In my office, please, Benjamin,” the balding man said sternly.

 _He must be the principal_ , Sam thought. His photographic memory, which usually seemed to remain intact for the duration of a leap, stored his information away. This boy’s name was Benjamin Cooke, probably called Ben by his friends. If he had any.

“Tom,” the man went on, turning to Sam, “you’ve made an impressive effort this semester. I will highly recommend you to the school board for my position next fall.”

Sometimes Sam really lucked out and the first few people he encountered on a leap gave him a gold mine of information. His name was Tom Hunter. He was a student teacher, and evidently a pretty good one. The older gentleman was his supervising teacher. He was relieved that the man’s expectations of him were not as high as they would have been for a more seasoned teacher. He didn’t feel very good about the way he had handled the spitball incident. He felt that he should have been tougher on Ben, although he had no idea how to discipline an unruly teenager. He hoped this didn’t bode ill for the older teacher’s impression on the real Tom Hunter.

“Th-thank you, sir,” the leaper stammered.

“Very good explanation of the second law of thermodynamics, Miss Blake,” the man said to the girl.

“Thank you, Dr. Bradley,” she answered, blushing and looking down. “I hope I do as well on the scholarship exam on Sunday.”

“I’m sure you will Susan. I wish you the best of luck.”

“Thank you, sir.”

So Dr. Bradley was the physics teacher, Benjamin Cooke was the school hoodlum, and Susan Blake was the girl genius. Based on the clothing and hairstyles among the class, he guessed the time as being early 1970s, a time when girls were not encouraged or expected to excel at math and science. He wondered if his presence in this time and place had to do with her scholarship exam.

“Tom, I’d like to see you in my office in about half an hour to go over your progress report,” Dr. Bradley said. “It’s not on the record; I’d just like to share some of my observations and make a few suggestions.” He lowered his voice so the boy and girl wouldn’t hear. “Don’t worry, son, you’re doing fine. Discipline is probably the most difficult aspect of teaching.”

He smiled at Sam, who returned his smile. “Thank you, sir.” Then, without stopping to think first, he blurted, “Oh! Uh, Dr. Bradley? Where _is_ your office?” Even as he said this, he regretted it. Surely Tom Hunter knew exactly where his mentor’s office was. He sometimes suffered from hoof-in-mouth disease. He had learned not to dwell on these faux pas, but he couldn’t help feeling a little guilty whenever he made them. He hated the thought of making his host look bad.

However, as luck would have it, Dr. Bradley only laughed. “Oh, dear. I’m sorry! Dr. _Kaiser’s_ office. I guess I’m not actually the principal yet, am I?”

Sam laughed along politely while breathing an imperceptible sigh of relief. This was one of those amazing coincidences that allowed Sam not to make a complete ass of himself. There were times he felt the Force behind his leaps tried to make up for some of the nasty pranks it had played on him.

Meanwhile, Sam was simultaneously listening with another part of his brain to the conversation going on between Benjamin and Susan back at her desk.

“You’re goin’ with me tonight, Susan,” the boy said. “End of story.”

“Ben, I have to study tonight. You know that.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

“It’s only this last weekend—”

“Just a couple hours. That’s all I need.”

“Not this weekend.” Her voice was nervous but firm. Sam looked over at her and noticed she was not meeting Ben’s steady gaze.

“We haven’t gone out in ages. Not since spring break.” His face broke into a half-smirk and Susan blushed furiously, turning away. Her face was expressionless but her eyes were closed.

“I have to get this scholarship,” she said, her voice half-pleading.

Ben looked up suddenly at Sam, who guiltily looked away. He hissed at her, “You got somethin’ goin’ on with that fairy?”

Susan picked up the last of her things from her desk just as Dr. Bradley was walking out the door. “Ben, he’s my _teacher_ ,” she said. Then as she brushed past him, she added defensively, “And don’t call him a fairy.”

Ben glared at her back. “It’s what he is,” he muttered, falling in behind her.

Susan approached Sam. “Could I . . . talk to you about something after seventh period? It’s kind of important.” She glanced back at Ben in subtle discomfort. “It’s about . . . thermodynamics. I’m . . . having a little trouble with the first law.”

“Of course.”

She smiled. “Thanks, Tom.” Her eyes opened wide and she twisted her mouth into a little half-grimace. “I’m sorry! I mean ‘Mr. _Hunter_.’” She grinned at him a little sheepishly, and Ben gave her a pointed, knowing look as the two teens left the room.

Sam couldn’t really blame him. He seemed to remember another teacher who was having an affair with a student. Had that been in his own life or in one of his leaps? It had been in a college. . . . Yes, he had leaped into an English professor who was having an affair with a female student. His mission had been to get the girl back with her boyfriend. And there had been something else. His stomach jumped inexplicably as he tried to remember.

Was it possible his current mission was to keep Susan and Ben together and to stop an affair between her and Tom? That didn’t seem right. First, Susan didn’t seem the type to sleep with a teacher—even a young student teacher. And second, Susan and Ben did not seem right together. His gut told him so. And Al always told him he had good guts.

As Sam watched them leave, he puzzled over his latest conundrum. First of all, why would someone as intelligent as Susan obviously was have trouble with the first law of thermodynamics? Second, why did she seem to nervous and uncomfortable with everyone except him? Third, what was a nice girl like Susan doing with a punk like Ben in the first place? And finally, why did Susan call him—or _Tom,_ he corrected himself—by his first name?

Sam had half an hour before his meeting with Dr. Bradley in which to figure out where Dr. Kaiser’s office was. He looked around the room, hoping to find some more clues, considering himself blessed that no other students were filing into his room. This had apparently been his last class of the day. He glanced at the clock, which read 2:05. A large calendar hung on the wall with the heading “OAKDALE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL, Oakdale, Indiana.” Over the last full week of May 1972 was penciled in, “Last Week of Classes.” Tom’s daily planner told him it was Monday, May 8, and the last period of the day, from 2:00 to 3:00, was indeed Tom’s “prep period.”

He then spied the class grading book on the desk and sat down on the worn wooden chair to peruse it. The last class of the day was Advanced Physics. Ben had earned an F the first semester and his prospects at passing this semester looked none too promising, although his score had improved somewhat. Susan had received a D the first semester but an A- the second. Sam wondered idly if she was cheating. Perhaps that was what he was here for.

On the corner of the desk he found a stack of graded tests Tom had probably planned to distribute at the end of class. Sam placed the stack in front of him and began to rifle through it, pulling out Ben’s and Susan’s exams. Ben’s short answers consisted of sarcastic remarks about the pointlessness of the class. Sam had to admit, however, that Ben’s vocabulary was more advanced than he would have guessed, and his spelling and punctuation were also quite accurate. Susan’s responses were well-written and well-thought-out, although she had left all the questions on elemental physics unanswered.

If Tom were as good a teacher as Dr. Bradley seemed to think, Sam found it unlikely he would not notice if Susan were cheating. On the other hand, their relationship clearly went beyond that of a teacher and his student, as evidenced by her calling him by his first name and her easy attitude with him. It was possible Tom was allowing Susan to cheat.

Another thing struck Sam. She had seemingly struggled with the topic of elemental physics, but she asked him to meet with her to discuss the first law of thermodynamics. He reviewed her test again. All questions related to that law were answered perfectly.

He placed the stack of tests back on the corner of the desk and searched guiltlessly through the desk, silently rejoicing when he found a directory of classrooms and a map of the school tucked away at the bottom of a drawer. It was nearly 2:30, so he set off.

He entered the school office and asked the secretary if Dr. Bradley was in. She answered with a slight nod toward a closed door. “He’s got Ben in there with him,” she said, her eyes still on the paper she was typing. Her voice was sardonic. This was not an unusual occurrence.

“Oh,” Sam said awkwardly. “All right. He’s expecting me. I guess I’ll just wait for him here.”

The secretary didn’t respond. He got the impression that Tom Hunter was something of a nonentity to her.

Almost immediately, the door swung open and Ben stomped out, bumping roughly into Sam—accidentally-on-purpose. The boy turned to face him with a sneer and without missing a step, he said in mock deference, “Oh, I’m so _sorry_!”

Sam shot Ben a dirty look when the boy turned his back. Unfortunately, the school secretary had chosen that precise moment to look his way. Sam gave her a rueful smile accompanied by a truly contrite shrug, but she grinned in understanding, looking back at her typing.

Ben had left the office door open, and Sam turned to face the future principal, who had already made himself at home in his new digs. Dr. Bradley was seated at his desk. “Tom, come in. Have a seat.”

Sam complied with a quick “thank you,” closing the door behind him.

“First of all,” Dr. Bradley continued, “I’d like to commend you on how you composed yourself with Ben this afternoon. He’s a very troubled young man. I think you did best by simply ignoring him.”

Sam silently congratulated himself, although if he was being honest, he knew his lack of response had been because he was still groggy and disoriented from the leap-in. “I don’t quite understand what he’s doing in an advanced physics class,” he said aloud.

Dr. Bradley sighed deeply. “Ben is one of the brightest students at Oakdale, in fact. It’s just that it can be difficult to get a student to care when his parents don’t. To tell you the truth, I think the only thing that’s keeping him in school at all is Susan.”

“Susan?”

“Yes. I honestly hadn’t expected Ben to return to school after Christmas break. Susan seemed to take him under her wing at the beginning of the semester. She’s a lovely girl, but of course, they’re not right together. She took him on as a sort of pet project, and he got the wrong idea. He’s holding her back, and it really concerns me because she has a very bright future if she applies herself.”

He sighed again. “But as you’re aware, she got off to a very rocky start last semester.”

“She got a D,” Sam put in, rather unnecessarily.

“Exactly. Now granted, she’s not yet seventeen, but she still has an excellent chance of getting a full scholarship at the Phoenix Institute. I only hope it’s not too late.”

“But she’s doing so well now,” Sam said. “What happened?” He knew he was taking a chance at asking something Dr. Bradley would know should be obvious to Tom, but he had to know.

Dr. Bradley smiled. “The reason she’s improved is no mystery, Tom. It was your coming home from college.”

Sam choked a little. “My…coming home?”

“Don’t be so modest, Tom. You know how much you mean to Susan. Not to mention her going to your house every night…”

This was getting a little sinister. “Her…going to my house…” He had the bad habit of repeating things when he was trying to sort out confusing information.

Fortunately, Dr. Bradley didn’t seem to notice anything off-kilter. “Your tutoring her really seems to be paying dividends.”

Sam sighed in relief. He was just her tutor!

“At any rate, Tom,” Dr. Bradley went on, “I simply wanted to reassure you that the way you’ve handled Ben this semester was perfectly all right. You’ve done a fine job student teaching, and as I said, I will highly recommend you to the school board for my teaching position next fall.”

They both rose and shook hands.

“Thank you, Dr. Bradley.”

“Thank _you_ , Tom.”

 

 


	2. You've Got a Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Al finds Sam and they discover why he's here.

On his way back to the classroom, Sam took a detour at the drinking fountain. He had some time to kill before he was to meet with Susan, so he spent a little of it wandering the halls, stopping now and then to read posters and placards tacked to the bulletin boards. He hadn’t done enough of that while he’d been in high school himself.

He heard the faint sound of squeaking sneakers, a bouncing basketball, and girls’ voices. He realized offhandedly he must be approaching the school gym. This brought back memories, too. He had played basketball in school. Unlike some bookish types, Sam had been very athletic, thanks to the tutelage of his older brother. He couldn’t quite remember his name, but he could see his face clearly and hear the sound of his encouraging voice.

His reverie was broken when a man in a bright green suit with an equally bright yellow button-down dress shirt suddenly backed out of the gym and into his path. Sam screeched to a halt and began a hasty and breathless apology as he collided with him—only to realize he had walked through him instead.

“Ya know, Sam, there’s something about those polyester gym shorts that really bring back—”

“Al!” Sam barked, interrupting the holographic transmission of his friend and Leap companion.

“Sorry, Sam,” Al apologized.

Sam would have sworn Al sometimes sneaked up on him deliberately. He could have easily opened the Imaging Chamber door to alert Sam to his arrival, but on many occasions, he did not. The truth was, sometimes Al simply forgot to. And in this particular case, Al was indulging in a little...sight-seeing.

At the precise moment Sam had spoken, a very attractive and mature-looking senior with dark skin and long, dark curls pulled back into a perky pony tail, was limping out of the gym on a twisted ankle. She looked Sam up and down appreciatively and said with a sultry smile, “No. It’s Angie. Do I _look_ like an Al?”

Sam turned pink. “Uh, no. I’m sorry...”

Al watched the girl go, muttering, “No, Angie, you sure don’t look like an Al...”

“Stop that!” Sam hissed sharply with a scowl. Al’s naturally lascivious nature, which some found charming in the late 20th century, was something Sam only barely tolerated. But he _hated_ when he ogled teenagers. Even if that teenager was eighteen going on twenty-nine.

“Sorry again, Sam,” he said, but still eyeing the young woman.

“So, what am I here for?” Sam asked, not really in the mood to lecture the admiral on sexual propriety. He started to walk down the hall, back to the physics classroom, and Al followed, pressing a series of buttons on his blinking, semi-translucent handlink.

“Well,” Al began, “let’s see. It’s...Monday, May eighth...”

“Nineteen seventy-two,” Sam put in.

“Uh... right,” Al said, giving Sam a sidelong glance, generously overlooking the fact that his friend had interrupted his flow. “And this is...”

“Oakdale Public High School. Oakdale, Indiana.”

“Yeah. Ya know, I really wish you wouldn’t _do_ that, Sam,” Al complained. “It’s a little _annoying_.”

Sam was too much of a gentleman to point out all the things Al did that were a little annoying. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Go on.”

“Thank you. Your name is...” He paused and looked at Sam expectantly.

“Tom Hunter,” Sam and Al said together.

“Yeah,” Al continued. “You’re twenty years old and you’re doing your student.”

Al paused and frowned at the handlink. Sam had been through this enough times to know the drill. It was one of the few consistencies remaining in his life and he found it oddly comforting. He watched Al slap the side of the handlink and listed to it whistle and tweet grumpily.

“Teaching,” Al read. He paused again, then in recognition he said, “Oh! Student _teaching!_ Haha!”

Sam glared at his friend, who stopped mid-chuckle, his mouth still open in a crooked, self-satisfied grin. He cleared his throat, suddenly all business again. “Sorry, Sam. Anyway, Tom skipped two years in primary school. That’s why he’s only twenty and student teaching.”

“And Susan’s sixteen and getting ready to graduate high school,” Sam said.

“Right.”

“Tom and Susan are more than teacher and student,” Sam observed.

“Right again. Tom’s parents were taking him and Susan’s older brother Patrick home from a football game when the boys were fifteen. This was 1967, five years ago. A drunk driver ran into their car, and Tom was the only survivor. Mr. and Mrs. Blake, Susan and Patrick’s parents, took Tom in until he was eighteen and then he moved into a house down the street. They seem to be very close. Back in the waiting room, all Tom kept asking was if Susan was all right.”

In fact, Tom had remained quite clear-headed upon his arrival in the waiting room back at the lab. The Visitors sometimes had to be sedated. Often they believed themselves to have been abducted by aliens or to have died. However, Tom’s main concern was not for himself but for his student—Susan in particular.

“But why am I here?” Sam asked.

Al opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by Susan, who had just walked up from behind them.

“I ask myself the same question every day,” she said with a wry grin.

Sam jumped again. “Oh! Hi, Susan.”

She smiled apologetically, sorry to have caught him talking to himself. “Hi. I hope I’m not...interrupting?”

“Oh, no,” he said hastily, “we were just—uh, _I_ was just—uh, talking to myself. It—uh—helps me think.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured him. “I do the same thing. I guess we’ve both got a lot to think about lately. You getting a job this fall. Me doing well on the scholarship exam on Sunday.”

“Right.”

“And Ben hasn’t exactly made things easier for either of us,” she said, putting a friendly hand on his arm. “I’m really sorry about today.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“I know, but I just feel sort of...responsible. I mean, he only hates you because he’s jealous.”

“Of...us?” Sam asked, his internal antenna raised.

“Well, yeah,” she said. “He doesn’t get what we’ve been through—you and I.” She paused and added thoughtfully, “He doesn’t get a _lot_ of things.” Then she smiled a shy, embarrassed smile. “You probably don’t even get why I’d even _date_ Ben.”

Sam smiled in return. “Well,” he said with gentle diplomacy, “he doesn’t exactly seem like your type.”

“I’m sure it seems like I’m trying to rebel or something, but that’s really not it,” she said, trying to explain. “It’s just that...he’s had such a hard life. His dad’s drinking, his mom’s suicide. His stepmother’s nervous breakdowns. He just seemed so...lonely.”

“And you thought that if only someone reached out to him... got to know him...be his friend...”

“That he’d change,” she finished for him. “Pretty naïve, I know. And I knew what it was like not to have any friends.”

“Well,” Sam said gently, hoping he wasn’t overstepping any boundaries, “you’ve got me.”

Susan blushed. That wasn’t what she’d been driving at. “That’s not what I mean,” she said apologetically. “I mean, I know I’ve been like a little sister to you. But I wasn’t trying to guilt you into declaring friendship.”

“There’s no guilt involved,” he assured her. “I know you may find it hard to believe, but ... you’re worth getting to know, too.” He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but he did. With all his heart. When he looked into her eyes, it was as if he was looking at himself at that age—all his fears, worries, concerns and about his future, about his worth as a human being, about his sense of belonging.

He was right on the money. He had good guts.

“And it’s hard,” he went on, “being the youngest in your class. The other kids have different interests. Kids always pick on people who are different. Their own insecurity makes them resentful. They assume you think you’re superior to them when all you want to do is fit in, to belong. To be a part of them....” His voice trailed off as he realized he was almost trying to comfort himself at age sixteen.

Susan was gazing at him with shining eyes. “You and I have so much in common,” she said wonderingly. “I never even realized it bothered you so much, graduating so young.”

“I never realized it bothered you, either,” he said.

“It’s so funny what we keep bottled up inside. You’d think we’d all be a lot healthier if we could just tell people exactly what we feel—exactly what’s inside us. Instead of hiding it from them.”

“And from ourselves,” Sam added quietly, feeling a familiar little jump in his stomach. Al studied his friend’s face, trying to decipher the meaning of his last comment.

“Yeah, I guess,” Susan said, not quite sure what he meant either.

Sam wished he hadn’t articulated that last thought and deftly changed the subject. “You, um, wanted to talk to me about something? Thermodynamics?”

“Oh. Right.” Susan was jerked back to reality. “Could I run and get my things out of my locker first?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll just be a minute.” She turned to go, then turned back to him. “Oh, and Tom?”

“Yeah?”

She hesitated, choosing her words carefully so as not to offend. “If you’re gonna talk to yourself? Maybe do it behind closed doors.” She smiled warmly and deliberately closed the door to the classroom as she walked out.

“She has a point,” Al observed.

Sam looked questioningly at his hologrammatic friend. “So why _am_ I here? To get Susan and Ben to break up? To help her pass the scholarship exam? To get Tom this job?”

“I’m getting there, I’m getting there,” Al said, pressing a series of buttons on his handlink as it chirped at him. “OK. Ziggy says you’re here to help Susan—Uh-oh.”

“What ‘uh-oh’?”

“Well, helping her pass the exam is part of it,” Al continued hesitantly. “But you also have to convince her to... give up her baby for adoption.”

“Her _baby_?” Sam wrinkled his brow in sad surprise.

“She’s twelve weeks pregnant,” Al said quietly.

“Ben’s?”

Al shrugged, reading the display. “I don’t know.”

“So that’s what she wants to talk to me about. Not thermodynamics.” That hadn’t made any sense to Sam after all. “What happens in the original history? Does she keep the baby and quit school? Throw away a promising science career?”

Al shook his head grimly.

“She doesn’t...?”

“Ben takes her to a quack for an illegal abortion,” Al said. “The doctor is unlicensed, Sam. She bleeds to death in Ben’s car.”


	3. Sometimes a Cigar Is Just a Cigar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Susan explains her dilemma, and Sam tries to preemptively put things right. But something hinky seems to be going on with Susan.

“So I’m the only one she feels close enough to trust,” Sam said pensively, already contemplating how he would help this girl change the course of her fate.

“Yeah,” Al sighed. “Well, _Tom_ is... Sam.” He eyed Sam warily. Sometimes the synapses of Sam’s brain fused more tightly with those of the person he leaped into that was really comfortable. “She evidently doesn’t feel she can tell her parents. I mean, this is a very Irish Catholic community. Her parents probably wouldn’t take it so good if she told ‘em she was pregnant, and she doesn’t want to blow her chance at a career, so she feels that...”

“An abortion is her only option,” Sam finished.

“Right.” Al shook his head. “Poor kid.”

“So what do I do? Convince her to keep the baby and give up college? Or give the baby up for adoption? Or find a doctor with credentials and the necessary skill—”

“No,” Al cut in. “Susan can’t break the law and Roe v. Wade doesn’t happen until next year. Ziggy says there’s an eighty-two percent probability that abortion is not an option for her.”

 _Ziggy has been wrong before_ , Sam thought. “Then what is?” he said aloud.

“What is what?” It was Susan, walking into the room as Sam swung to face her guiltily. She misinterpreted his startled look. “I see you’re taking my advice,” she said diplomatically.

“Advice?”

“Talking to yourself behind closed doors?” she reminded him with a smile.

Sam smiled back and invited her to take a seat. He rose and closed the door behind her. “You wanted to talk to me about...something?”

“Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “It’s, uh...it’s not about thermodynamics.” She opened her mouth, then closed it again. She smiled and scoffed through her nose. “Boy, this is harder than I thought it’d be.”

“Sometimes it’s easiest if you just say it without thinking about it,” Sam prodded gently.

She nodded, opened her mouth, inhaled deeply, and looked away. She paused a moment before saying quickly, “I’m gonna have a baby.”

Sam was suddenly unsure what to say, since she was telling him something he’d already had time to contemplate. Al came to his rescue as he so often did. “Act surprised, Sam,” he prompted. “Ask her if she’s sure she’s pregnant.”

“Uh... _pregnant?”_ Sam said, putting his acting skills to work. “Are—are you sure?”

She nodded, blinking back tears. “I went to the doctor last week. I’m three months along. Due just before Thanksgiving.” She wiped a tear away before adding, “It’s Ben’s.”

Sam was relieved to hear that, at any rate, although he wouldn’t have been entirely surprised if she’d told him the baby was his— _Tom’s_.

“Do you parents know?” he asked, feeling more relaxed that he no longer had to act. “Does Ben?”

“No. You’re the only person I’ve told. You’re the only person I felt I _could_ tell. I just had to tell _somebody._ ” She started to lose her calm.

“Of course you did,” Sam said, putting his hand on her shoulder in a comforting gesture. “But I think you should tell your parents.”

“Good, Sam,” Al commented, his eyes on the handlink. “That’s just what Tom would’ve said.” _Even though it’s probably wrong._

“Oh, Tom, you know I can’t do that. They’d disown me.”

“I don’t think they’d disown you,” he countered sincerely.

Al, who had been tapping away at the handlink, suddenly broke in, “Yes, they would, Sam!”

“Yes, they would, Tom,” Susan said simultaneously. Al glanced at her.

She paused and debated internally whether she should tell Tom a certain deep, dark secret about her past. She decided that she must, in order for him to fully understand her predicament. “Did Patrick ever tell you about our older sister?”

“Uh...no,” Sam answered truthfully, his eyes darting surreptitiously toward Al for guidance. “He didn’t.”

“Her name’s Kaitlyn,” Susan said. “About eleven years ago when she was eighteen, she got pregnant and she told Mom and Dad. They always said we could tell them anything, but I guess that was too much for them. I guess the next day Dad went up to Katie’s room and later that afternoon, she left and I never saw her again. Never heard from her. Patrick told me he’d been listening at the door. Dad told her that he and Mom didn’t want her or her...bastard child living in their house, especially with a five-year-old there. Like she was gonna somehow corrupt me.” She shook her head bitterly. “Ironically, I corrupted just nicely without her.”

Sam tried to be encouraging. “Maybe... maybe they’ve changed.”

“People like that don’t change, Sam,” Al muttered cynically.

“Maybe they have and maybe they haven’t,” Susan said, dangerously close to wailing. “I can’t take that chance.” She stopped, a sudden thought having crossed her mind. “You won’t tell them, will you?”

“No, of course not,” he assured her. “It’s not my place to tell them.”

“Oh, but it’s mine?” she said sarcastically. “Tom, I’m not gonna do it. They’ll kick me out and my life will be over. College, my career, my family. I can’t throw that all away. There’s no way I can support myself and a baby, let alone go to college. I’ll end up living at St. Mary’s homeless shelter.”

“But they’ll find out sooner or later,” Sam said, knowing he was setting her up for the final stage of her confession.

She was silent for a long time before whispering, “Not if it goes away.” She quickly made her prepared speech, not giving him the chance to interrupt. “Tom, I don’t have the money right now. But there’s an opening for a paid intern at Oakdale Community College. The pay is pretty good, and if you could just loan me the money, I could pay you back before I start college in the fall.”

“I just think you should weigh all your options first,” Sam said. “This is a big decision. You shouldn’t just rush into it.” He chose he words carefully and spoke them as delicately as he could. “I’m just not sure an abortion is the right choice for you.”

“Of _course_ it’s not the right choice for me!” she exclaimed, surprising him somewhat. “But neither is living on my own in some horrible apartment with a baby...when I have the chance to study _physics_ at the Phoenix Institute. _Do you see any comparison?_ Prominent physicist...” She held out her left hand, palm up. “Destitute single mother.” She held out her right hand.

“There’s got to be another—”

“Tom, believe me, I’ve given this a _lot_ of thought. But I’ve made up my mind. It’s a horrible, impossible decision, but I have to do what’s right for me now. I can’t let one...mistake ruin my future. Not if there’s a way out of it.”

“Sam, suggest adoption,” Al prompted.

“Susan, have you even considered adoption? There are a lot of families out there who desperately want a child but can’t have one.”

“Of course I have,” she answered wearily, “but by the time I leave for Phoenix in September, I’ll be huge. And if I don’t get the scholarship, I’ll be stuck here anyway. There’s no way to hide it. This just can’t happen.”

She could see she was getting nowhere with him. Resolutely, she tried a new angle. “I can get the money from Ben if I have to.”

“No!” Sam said, a little too sharply. “I mean,” he went on, lowering his voice, “I wouldn’t tell him about it, either. Not just yet.” He scratched his head, and inclined his head toward Al inquiringly. “Aren’t there... group homes for pregnant teenagers in the seventies?”

She frowned at his word choice and scoffed. “I don’t know. Maybe. But how would I convince my parents to let me move out?”

“You get the scholarship and tell your parents you want to take summer classes in Phoenix. Get a jump start on your freshman year. I’ll help you find a group home, give you whatever money you need. Then by the time you come home for Thanksgiving, you’ll have already had the baby, and your parents won’t even have to know.”

Susan contemplated this as she massaged her eyes with the fingers on her right hand. “I don’t know. I don’t think that’s something I can keep from my parents.”

“Is an abortion?” He hated asking the question but he felt compelled to.

Susan felt like a small, trapped animal. “I just want it to be _over_.”

“I know you do,” he said softly. “But I really think it’s a better choice for you. I mean... just think about it a little more. It’s your decision, but... I want you to know I’m here for you. Whatever you choose. You’re not alone in this.” He watched her face as he spoke, choosing his words carefully. “I just want to help you make the best decision for _you._ I’m glad you trust me enough to let me.”

“I can’t think of anyone else I trust half as much as you,” she said, “and I was terrified to tell you. I mean, I know how you feel about...you know...” She turned away and blushed, then finished in a whisper, “ _sex before marriage_.” She laughed grimly. “As if I’d marry Ben. Just the thought of being part of that family....Not that mine is ‘Father Knows Best’ or anything, but at least there’s always been love. Well, I mean, aside from throwing out your pregnant teenage daughter. But even Tevye in _Fiddler on the Roof_ threw out his daughter for marrying a gentile. It wasn’t easy for him. She was his little girl.” Susan sighed through her nose, her lips pursed in deep consideration. “Dad’s not heartless. Maybe he hoped she’d come back. He really thought he was doing the right thing. His beliefs are just so strong.”

“Just like Tevye’s.”

“Yeah. People do so many hurtful things in the name of their beliefs. As if other people’s beliefs don’t matter. It seems to me that God would be more forgiving of premarital sex or...marrying gentiles.” She wrinkled her nose. “Do I sound preachy?”

“Not at all,” Sam said with a smile. “I think you have a very strong sense of insight, compassion, and forgiveness.”

She blushed again, unaccustomed to praise. “Speaking of scents,” she said, changing the subject, “do you smell cigar smoke?”

Sam and Al’s respective sets of eyes bugged out. Sam looked at Al, who was standing in front of the open window at the back of the room, smoking his almost omnipresent cigar. Al, more than a little astonished, futilely hid it behind his back.

“Uh...n-no,” Sam stammered. It wasn’t a lie. Al was a hologram, as was his cigar. Sam couldn’t smell it any more than Al could smell anything in Sam’s world.

Nevertheless, Susan stood up and walked toward the back window, passing directly through Al’s image in the process. Al dropped the cigar onto the floor and as soon as it left contact with his hand, it was no longer visible.

“Well, I do,” she said.

“That’s impossible, Sam!” Al hissed as she looked out the window, peering to the left and then the right.

“I don’t see anybody,” she reported.

With Susan’s back turned, Sam gestured to Al to get the hell out of Dodge. The latter banged his fist into the side of the handlink, which somehow reminded the former of a handheld video game he thought he had once owned. The link whistled and growled, but the door to the Imaging Chamber would not open. Al looked helplessly at Sam, his eyebrows approaching his hairline.

“They were probably just...passing through,” Sam tried to rationalize.

“I guess so.” She turned around. “Why would anyone want to smoke those nasty things?”

Sam glanced wryly at Al. “I have no idea.”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it, Sam!” The door finally opened with a sort of _whoosh_ , and Al stepped through. He pressed a button and the door closed, leaving Sam and Susan alone.

“Anyways, are you coming over tonight for dinner before we study?” Susan asked. “Mom told me to make sure you do, ‘cause she’s making her famous fried chicken special for you.”

He smiled. “In that case, how can I refuse?”

Susan smiled. “Is eight o’clock OK? Dad’s working late.”

“Eight o’clock is fine.”

They stood facing one another and smiled awkwardly, unsure what to say. “Thanks a lot, Tom,” she said finally. “For everything.” She shyly gave him a hug, whispering, “I love you.”

Sam held her tenderly, feeling a strong, warm affection for the girl. “I love you, too, Susan.”


	4. A Nice Catholic Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Susan's parents are introduced and Sam gets some insight into Susan's predicament. Things continue to get hinky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little OC back story heavy, but there's plenty of Sam and Al, too.

Christine Blake was an attractive thirty-eight-year-old mother of two—well, three—no, _two—_ with dreams. Her husband Frank was forty-three and was only a few years away from earning a promotion when his boss retired. He was all but assured the management position when that happened.

And then there was Susan. What Christine and her husband lacked in raw brainpower, their daughter had more than made up for it. Here she was, only sixteen, and graduating from high school. She was about to become the first in her family to go to college, and she was a girl to boot! The times, they really were a-changin’. Not that Christine supported any of the women’s movements. All those feminists wanted was the right to kill their babies. She could never support that. Maybe they didn’t believe a fetus was a human being with rights, but the Blakes certainly did.

If it weren’t for that, though, she thought the feminist cause had a lot going for it. Not that women needed to earn as much money as men or anything like that. But if a girl, such as Susan, wanted to go to college and work alongside men in a lab, well, they should have that right.

She worried, though, that she and Frank had placed too much pressure on Susan to pass the scholarship exam. She was still a child, really, and the thought of her living in a dorm room with eighteen-year-olds was frankly a bit terrifying. What if they turned her into a feminist? Or worse—a sex-having, drug-doing, war-protesting hippie?

But she shook that off. She and Frank had raised her not to believe in those values. Susan didn’t talk much about politics, and she certainly didn’t believe in drugs or free love. They both knew without a doubt that Susan was a good girl—pure as the driven snow—and would remain a virgin until her wedding night.

Unlike her nephew Lance, who had gotten some floozy pregnant. She had to feel sorry for her brother Bill. It was a real mark against his and Carol’s parenting. There was never any talk about Lance and her getting married. Not that their getting married would make what they’d done all right.

She and Frank had absolutely no respect for Lance and his trampy little girlfriend. They were so glad they had raised their daughter right, had brought her up to follow the Church, and had instilled in her their own high moral values.

They were so proud of her.

**********

It was about 7:30 p.m. when Christine started making the salad for supper. Fifteen minutes later, Frank arrived home.

“Hi, sweetie,” he greeted her with a kiss.

“Hi, honey. How was your day?”

“Not bad.” His eyes were twinkling, leading her to suspect it had been better than not bad. “Where’s Susan?”

“I assume she’s studying at Tom’s.” She was dying to hear Frank’s news of the day, but she knew he would hold out on her until Susan was home.

“Is he coming to dinner?” Frank asked, reaching into the cookie jar.

“I think so. I told Susan to invite him. Give him a break from all his tutoring.”

“That girl is gonna kill herself studyin’,” he said through the cookie he held in his teeth.

“Sunday can’t come quick enough for me,” she remarked, taking one of the two additional cookies from his hand and replacing it in the cookie jar.

“Are you worried?”

“About her passing the test?” she asked, and he nodded. “Oh, a little.” She turned to the oven and pulled out a pan of hot rolls. “I think it’d break her heart if she didn’t get at least a partial scholarship. Not that we’d be able to afford the rest of the tuition. But she’s worked so hard to bring her grades up these past months.”

“How many students a year get the full ride?” Frank asked, distracting his wife as he furtively sneaked his cookie back from the jar.

“Only one from every state gets a full four-year scholarship, and I think a couple hundred nationwide get partial ones.” She carefully placed the rolls into a napkin-lined basket.

The phone rang and Frank answered it. As he listened, his face took on a decidedly displeased look. “No, she’s not. I’ll have her call when—” Suddenly he slammed the phone onto the receiver in disgust. “That punk! He hung up on me in the middle of a sentence! And I was even being polite.” He faced his wife. “It’s a good thing Susan’s graduating in two weeks and getting the hell out of that school.” He sat down at the table, frowning thoughtfully as he nibbled his cookie.

“Honey, it’s not a bad _school_ ,” she reminded him tolerantly, allowing him the extra cookie.

“Well, they wouldn’t let trash like that into the Catholic high school. I’m tellin’ you, Christine, if she meets up with another one like that in college, she can kiss my money goodbye. I won’t have her throwin’ away her life on a creep like that. She does understand that, doesn’t she?”

“She told me she broke up with him over spring break, but he just keeps pursuing her.”

Susan entered the house through the kitchen door just in time to hear the last part of the conversation. “Did Ben call again?”

Her father frowned again and pursed his lips. “Yes, he did, and he was very rude.”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Susan said, giving him a peck on the cheek. “I don’t know what I have to do to get through to him.”

“I just wish I could have sent you to Sacred Heart,” he said. “You coulda met a nice _Catholic_ boy. Someone you could respect.”

“I do respect Ben.” Her father shot her a dubious look, and she added, “Everyone deserves respect.” She tried to think of an analogy. She brightened, mildly triumphant. “Christ respected the prostitutes and tax collectors.”

This phased him not one bit. “Yeah, but he didn’t _date_ ‘em.”

“That’s right, honey,” her mother said, always the go-between, friendly with both sides, “we want you to find a nice Catholic boy in college. Someone intelligent and respectable, like your father. Or like Tom.”

“Yes,” Mr. Blake said with great dignity. “We are the perfect men.”

His wife tried to ignore that comment, but her rueful smile gave her away. “We’re not trying to marry you off right out of high school. It’s just that you’ve never dated anyone except Ben, and you can do a lot better. You do want to get married one day, don’t you?” She tacked on that addendum before she could stop herself. Maybe her college-minded scientific daughter was already flirting with the idea of feminism.

“I don’t know,” Susan admitted. “Someday, maybe. After college and I have a good job somewhere. It’s just not on my mind right now.”

The “maybe” was enough of a bone for Mrs. Blake. “Well, just find someone like your dad or Tom, and we’ll be happy.” She said this with a certain finality, then quickly changed the subject, lest her daughter’s future as a wife and mother be shattered by too much discussion. “Speaking of Tom, I thought you were studying at his place. Isn’t he coming to dinner?”

“He’ll be here at eight,” Susan said, “and I’m going over there afterward.”

“You know, Tom reminds me a lot of your father when he was that age. I don’t know why he doesn’t find a nice Catholic girl and settle down.”

Susan had heard this phrase so often, she mentally added capital letters: Nice Catholic Girl®.

“Gail Driscoll’s daughter Barb is twenty-two and just graduated from secretarial school at St. Francis. Wouldn’t they make a striking couple? Gail says she’s had a crush on Tom since they were in Sunday school together. Isn’t that cute?”

“Adorable,” Susan said, rolling her eyes as she turned her back. Barb Driscoll was definitely _not_ Tom’s type. She didn’t even know how she’d graduated secretarial school; she was barely literate. “I think Kelly Callahan is prettier. She has a nice name, too. Alliterative, extra-Irish. And she’s really smart, too.”

“Well, there’s more to life than smart,” said Mrs. Blake, completely oblivious to the fact that Susan’s entire self-identity was that she was smart.

As their conversation grew more impassioned about what woman would best suit Tom Hunter, they put supper on. Susan carried a bowl of green beans to the table where her father was sitting. He grabbed two beans from the bowl, stuck them into his nose, and sat staring placidly at his wife and daughter as they talked. They glanced at him briefly on their way past him and went about their business without missing a beat. It was something he sometimes did for a laugh or to break tension. The Blake women were used to it, and they had an unspoken agreement that if they refused to acknowledge it, he would eventually stop doing it.

“Kelly’s engaged to an orthodontist,” Mrs. Blake told Susan.

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. An orthodontist or an orthopedist. I can’t remember.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” Susan said. “Barb isn’t his type. Now, Denice Hannigan. _There’s_ a girl Tom should go out with.”

“Well, anyways, we’ve got to find you a boyfriend,” her mother said. “Ben’s just a little too wild. And I think he’s...” She lowered her voice to a whisper, “ _an atheist_. When his mother died and his father started drinking, they both stopped going to church. And his new stepmother isn’t religious, either, as far as anyone can tell. So you can’t really expect much from Ben, can you?” She gave her husband a pointed look.

“Just a little respect,” he said quietly, beans in nose. “That’s all.”

The doorbell rang and Susan went to the living room to answer it.

“Hi, Tomas!” she said affectionately. “Come on in. We’re just putting supper on the table.”

They went into the kitchen. Sam shook Susan’s parents’ hands. “Good evening, Mrs. Blake. Mr. Blake.” Sam did a noticeable double take at the beans but chose to ignore them, just in case he didn’t realize they were there.

The Blakes looked at each other. Susan motioned for her father to remove the beans and said in amusement, “Why so formal? This isn’t a ball.”

“Formal?” Sam was truly confused.

“You’ve never called them anything but Frank and Christine before. Even when you were in high school.”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Sam said, feeling foolish. “Frank. Christine.” He gave them an awkward wave, smiling sheepishly. He thought quickly but spoke haltingly, trying to find the words. “It’s just...when you’re teaching... you try to... set a good example. Teach them... respect.”

Frank put an arm around Sam’s shoulder and led the bemused time traveler to his place at the table. “Christine, I like this boy!”

********

The Blakes and their guest were just finishing up a hearty Midwestern meal, the kind Sam remembered from his own Indiana home in Elk Ridge. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans (Sam had only a very small helping of those), hot rolls, and apple pie.

“We’ve really appreciated your tutoring Susan this semester, Tom,” Christine was saying. “If you’re half as good a teacher as Susan says you are, you’re a shoe-in for Dr. Bradley’s job.”

“Thank you, Christine.”

“Of course he’ll get the job,” Susan put in. “No one teaches physics like Tom. Except maybe Dr. Bradley, I mean,” she added loyally.

“I have some great news, guys,” Frank said, the twinkle back in his eyes.

“Well, thank goodness,” Christine said with mock sarcasm. “I was afraid you’d forget to tell us.”

“Well...” He paused for effect, then burst out, “Jim decided to retire early. I’m being promoted now! Even without a scholarship, Susan, I think I can still swing at least a semester or two of college.”

There were general congratulations bestowed upon Frank, and he beamed at them proudly.

“That’s so great, Dad!” Susan got up and gave her father a hug, then sat back down. “And actually, I’ve got some news, too.”

Sam looked at her, thinking that now was not the best time to break the news of her pregnancy to her family. She took a deep breath. “I got a job at the community college. In the physics department, helping out in the lab during summer classes.”

Sam looked down, frustrated that he’d not been able to talk the girl out of her decision after all. He knew Al and Ziggy could help her find a qualified physician who could perform the procedure safely, but the fact remained that abortion was still illegal in 1972. Regardless of what was right or wrong for her, he could not help her break the law. But he could take her to Mexico, where it could be performed both safely and legally. He could also make sure she sought proper counseling. He didn’t know much about psychology, but he knew Susan was young and deeply indoctrinated into Midwestern Christian values. She might not fully realize what she was getting into and the ramifications it might have on her psyche.

“That’s a big help, Susan,” her father said proudly. “Congratulations to you, too.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you finished with your pie, Tom?” Christine asked, a little concerned that he had only finished half of his second slice.

“Uh, yeah. I’m sorry, I can’t eat another bite. Everything was wonderful.” He smiled and added on faith, “As always. Thank you.”

“Mom, you want me to help you red up?”

Sam glanced at Susan. He had heard that colloquialism before, but he couldn’t remember where—or more accurately, when. He didn’t think it was a phrase they used back home in Elk Ridge.

“No, hon, you go on and study before it gets too late. Your dad can help me.”

She thanked her parents and turned to Sam. “Let’s go to the park for a minute. It’s so nice out.”

“Sure,” Sam agreed. “It’ll do me good to walk off some of this dinner.” He grinned and patted his belly for Christine’s benefit. “I’ll see you folks later.”

“Be home by twelve,” Susan’s father said unnecessarily. She knew her curfew and never broke it.

********

Sam and Susan walked through the quiet suburban neighborhood to the park. It was nearly dark but the streetlights provided enough illumination for them to see. They were silent and pensive as they reached the park. Finally, Sam said grimly, “Congratulations on your job.”

“Thanks. They said they wanted someone with more experience, but they must not have had many applicants.”

Sam stopped walking and turned to face her. For once, he was determined to follow Ziggy’s theory to the letter. “Susan, I really wish you’d reconsider—”

“Tom, you don’t understand—”

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I _do_ understand. You’re scared, you’re embarrassed, you’re—”

“I’m not having it,” she interrupted.

“—feeling alone. But please believe me, it’s—” Sam stopped midsentence, momentarily confused. “Wait a minute, you’re not having what?”

She smiled and said, embarrassed, through gritted teeth, “The _abortion_. I’m gonna have the baby. I’ll work and save up money and then break the news to my parents later in the summer that I’m moving to Phoenix early. Just like you said. Now all I have to do is get the scholarship. Because otherwise...” She winced comically and shrugged.

Sam sighed, relieved. “You’ve made the right decision.” He hesitantly held his arms out to her and she awkwardly stepped into his embrace.

“I think I have,” she said, her cheek against his chest. “It’ll be weird and it still doesn’t seem right, but I guess I’ve been through worse. Besides...” She stepped back and turned from him. “I can’t punish my baby for my mistake.” Her voice caught, almost imperceptibly.

She walked quickly from him toward the swings and sat in one. Her feet barely scraped the ground as she swung back and forth. She didn’t want him to see her cry. Tom hated for her to cry, and she hated it even more.

After a moment, he walked over and sat on the swing next to her. She looked up and he was watching her with his dark hazel eyes, as if searching her soul, with tender concern and...something else? No, he was her brother, her teacher, her friend. Nevertheless, she felt a strange flip in her stomach. It was probably the baby. _Do babies flip at twelve weeks?_

She looked up into the sky. In spite of the streetlights in the distance, the stars were bright against the dark sky. “It’s beautiful out, isn’t it?” she whispered. “All those stars...”

“Yeah...”

“You can almost touch them—”

She was interrupted by a sort of whooshing sound. She whirled around, startled, and looked behind her.

“Oh, don’t worry, that’s just—” Sam stopped himself. What was he saying? He had almost said it was just Al, his hologrammatic friend from the future.

“Just what?” she asked, looking directly through Al behind her.

“Just... the wind. In the trees. The whooshing sound,” he said.

“It didn’t sound like wind in the trees,” she said skeptically.

“Well... do you... see anything else?” he asked hesitantly. _Oh, please don’t see anything else._

“No. Guess you’re right.” She turned back to face forward on the swing.

“She didn’t actually hear the _door_ opening, did she, Sam?” Al asked in disbelief. “What should I do? Stay here or go? Ziggy has another theory.”

Susan looked back up at the stars dreamily. “Do you think there’s life out there? Intelligent, friendly life?”

“Well... Yeah. The universe is an awfully immense place. It seems logical that Earth...maybe isn’t the only planet that holds intelligent life. It seems a little...I don’t know, arrogant to assume humans are the only intelligent beings in the entire universe.” For some reason, he was having a hard time putting his thoughts into words.

“You sound like Mr. Spock,” she said, ignoring, as always, the fact that he was rambling. Tom was, in fact, a rambler—better with numbers than with words.

Sam’s brow furrowed. “The...baby doctor?”

“No,” Susan laughed, “ _Mister_ Spock. From ‘Star Trek.’ That was our favorite show. Don’t you remember?”

“I...of course.”

“My favorite episode was the one where they go back in time to change something that went wrong in the past.”

Sam and Al exchanged uncomfortable looks. _You never realize how preoccupied people are with time travel until you yourself are traveling in time_ , Sam thought uneasily.

“Do you think we’ll ever find a way to travel back in time?” Susan continued. “And put right what...once went wrong?”

“Did you hear that, Sam?” Al exclaimed. “She used those words. Your project thesis.”

“Yeah,” Sam said in wonderment, answering both of them simultaneously. “I think so. Someday...”

“Really?” She looked at him in surprise. “You never struck me as the type.” She looked back at the night sky and resumed her dreamy musing. “What would you change if you could go back in time?”

“Well,” Sam began, thinking of how Tom would respond. “I wouldn’t have let my parents and Patrick leave the house the night of the accident.”

“Yeah. Me too. And I’d’ve studied harder when I had the chance.” She could feel the tears coming again, in spite of her best efforts to control them. Her voice dropped to a strained whisper. “And I’ve have listened to you about Ben.” She allowed a tear to roll down her cheek. “Why didn’t I listen?”

“Because maybe you saw something in him that I couldn’t.”

“Yeah,” she said, a small, sad smile at one corner of her mouth. “I like to think there’s some good in everyone. I thought he was just feeling lonely and misunderstood....”

“Like you?”

If he didn’t stop being so sensitive and understanding, she was going to break down. “Yeah.”

“Aw, Sam, the poor kid.” Al knew how it felt to be lonely and misunderstood, too.

Sam reached to touch her hand on the chain holding the swing. He looked at her as she looked at the ground. Susan had never felt this close to another human being in her life. This bond was so much stronger and deeper and more real than anything physical could ever be. It felt as if their souls were one.

She sighed and whispered, “Sam?”

“Yeah?” he whispered back.

“I mean.... Tom.” She shook her head and smiled as embarrassed a smile as she ever had, thanking those lucky stars it was so dark he couldn’t see how beet red her face was. Here she was, feeling the closeness she felt (they both felt) and she couldn’t even get his name right. “My gosh, where did _that_ come from? I don’t even know any Sams!”

Sam and Al were, needless to say, quite taken aback. Al didn’t believe in psychic phenomena, although he was far more superstitious than his friend. However, there had been several so-called psychics in their travels who could sense Al’s presence and see Sam as himself.

“It’s an easy mistake,” Sam said, trying to rationalize for her. “I mean... ‘Tom.’ ‘Sam.’”

“Yes, but you answered to it. That was really weird.” She paused to ponder the unusual exchange.

Sam gently changed the subject. “You started to say something?”

Susan grew awkward. “Oh. Yeah. I was just gonna say...thanks.”

“For what?” Sam asked gently.

Her voice barely audible, she whispered, “For not thinking I’m a slut.”

Something about Susan and her situation had been bothering Sam for a while now. He decided now was the perfect time to address it, under cover of darkness.

“Susan. Did you... consent to having sex with Ben?”

She laughed with biting sarcasm to hide her humiliation. “Well, I had it, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but... did you _want_ to?”

Susan waged a silent internal battle with herself. She thought back to that Saturday night in February at Ben’s house. His mother had just been committed to psychiatric hospital for her nerves, and his father had gone out...somewhere. Ben had been despondent and Susan desperately wanted to make him smile. He hadn’t smiled in so long. He wasn’t an emotionally expressive person, but with Susan, he was able to show the occasional glimpse of the person he was. And Susan fed on it like a drug. It made her feel powerful, special, important.

It was she who had made the offer to study with him over Christmas break. They had both nearly failed their physics finals and she convinced him that all they needed was each other’s support to succeed. She got to know Ben during those few weeks. He had a witty sense of humor, which she never would have guessed, and he was surprisingly well-read. She realized everyone in town had underestimated him—herself included.

It took some time, but he eventually opened up to her about his mother’s suicide, his father’s alcoholism, and his stepmother’s mental illness. Susan tried her best to comfort him and shared her own history. Together, they felt a little less alone.

They spent Christmas Eve together, much to the displeasure of Susan’s parents. But Ben’s father was passed out drunk in the garage and his stepmother was locked in the home’s only bathroom, wailing at the top of her lungs. Ben even went to midnight Mass with the Blakes. It was the first time he’d attended church since he was a preteen.

By February, Ben’s stepmother’s conditioned had worsened and she checked into the psych ward. Ben once again turned inward. Susan felt she was losing him. She went to his house and firmly demanded they talk things through. Instead of staying at the house, Ben insisted they drive to Groveland Bridge. She wasn’t aware that the sandy area beneath Groveland Bridge was where teenagers traditionally went to make out. She just wanted to talk.

When he pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels and lit up a marijuana cigarette, Susan felt her stomach fall. She had known he did these things but he had never done them in front of her. He knew how she felt about it, and he had always wanted to protect her from his vices. She tried to take them from his hand but he was too strong. After a long silence, he told her that his own mother had committed herself to the same hospital his stepmother had. It had been there that his mother had taken her own life.

And the tears rolled freely down his face.

She wiped them away, her face so close to his. His eyes stared into hers. The smell of his breath, sharp with the alcohol and sweet smoke, sent a wicked thrill through her. Her heart began to beat rapidly and she wondered whether he would finally kiss her.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to before. But Ben knew that once he got started with a girl, he couldn’t stop himself. One kiss led to a hand in just the right place, and the next thing he knew he was buckling his belt and driving her home. But with Susan, it was different. It wasn’t that he wasn’t attracted to her. But after he had a girl, he lost interest. And he didn’t want to lose interest in Susan. Her love was the only thing holding him together. The only person he’d allowed himself to love had been his mother. But his love hadn’t meant anything to her. She repaid him by taking her own life and leaving him alone.

Now Susan had intruded on his perfectly content loneliness and forced him into loving her.  She had to know he was incapable of loving her back. Hadn’t he tried to tell her that?

The stupid bitch.

Ben’s feelings flooded over him unexpectedly—the rage he felt toward himself, toward his selfish mother, and toward Susan, who had betrayed him by loving him. She had made him soft, had melted his hard, protective exterior, with no consideration for his ability to survive without it.

With her face so close to his, he reached for it with his own. He would show her who was in control here, and it sure as hell wasn’t her.

It hadn’t really taken Susan by surprise, the feel of his lips against hers, although it was the first time she’d felt that sensation. Through his trembling lips, she could feel Ben’s pain, his sorrow, his anguish, and his aloneness. They were a telegraph wire from his soul.

He needed understanding. He needed comfort. He needed love.

And now Tom was asking her if she had really wanted to have sex with Ben.

Finally, she answered in a very small voice. “Yes.”

She rose from the swing and stalked off toward Tom’s house, wiping away the tears from her cheeks with her thumbs.

Quietly but with conviction, Sam announced, “She’s lying, Al.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I originally wrote this in 1994, I included the bit about the beans in the nose as a joke. I decided to keep it in because it made me laugh, and because it's something my own father ACTUALLY DID ONE TIME. Right in the middle of dinner. I turned to him, and there he sat, all casually, with green beans sticking out of his nose. It remains the weirdest thing I've ever seen him do.


	5. Epiphany

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Susan comes to a realization, and her bond with Sam grows.

Sam gave Susan some time to herself, then followed her to Tom’s house. Inside, she was sitting in a chair near the piano in the living room, slowly and clumsily strumming a guitar. Sam sensed that Tom had been giving her guitar lessons. _Must be part of Tom’s residual memory_ , he surmised.

The music she was trying to play was strangely familiar to Sam, but he couldn’t quite place it. It was slightly arhythmical and very simple. Very plaintive. Suddenly the title came to him. “I Am a Rock.” Her expression of her own inner feelings was none too subtle.

Sam down at the piano next to her and she stopped strumming. He began to play. If Simon and Garfunkel could express Susan’s feelings of despair and betrayal, so could they express his feelings of love, understanding, and support. In his sweet baritone he sang to her words of comfort when she was weary and had no other friends to turn to.

While he sang, Susan set the guitar on the floor. Sam watched her as he sang and played. She was smiling even as the tears streamed down her face. He saw the hurt and pain she was feeling, the fear and the shame. The innocence. The purity. He saw himself somehow mirrored in her eyes, and like himself, this girl was not about to willingly give herself physically to someone she did not love. She could pity Ben, she could care about him, and she could respect him. But she did not love him.

The last note faded and he turned to her. “You have to tell your parents what he did to you.”

“No, Tom,” she said, looking down at her hands. “It wasn’t like that. It was my—”

“Susan, listen to me,” he said firmly. “It wasn’t your fault. Ben was the—”

“It _was_ my fault. I led him on.”

“You?” This was something Sam could not believe. He began to feel angry. “Is that what he said?”

“Yeah.”

“What did _you_ say?” he demanded.

“What did _I_ say? What do you mean?”

“Did you say no?” he prompted.

“Well... yeah.” Of course she had. She wasn’t even in love with Ben. Not that being in love would have been the act any less sinful.

“Susan, you look at me,” he said gently but firmly. She did and he took her hands in his. “No always means no. Do you understand me? If you said ‘No,’ then that’s what you meant. If he did it anyway, then he did it against your will. It wasn’t your fault.”

She looked away again. “But he was so sad...” Even as she said it, it sounded ridiculous.

“He doesn’t seem sad now.”

“After that night, he sort of...changed. He’d started drinking again. And after that, he was...mean again. And then he always wanted....well, you know... But like I said, it was my fault for leading him on.”

Sam sighed. “Susan. What did you do to ‘lead him on’?”

Realization began to dawn on her and she felt foolish. “I don’t know. I didn’t do anything differently than any other time I was with him. He was just ... angrier.” Her voice grew more and more indignant. “And you know, it’s not like I was dressed extra-sleazy or anything. I wasn’t touching him or ... saying anything suggestive.” Her face broke into what was almost a smile. “You’re right! It wasn’t my fault. He did that to me.”

Sam allowed her a moment to absorb this new realization. Then he said, “Your parents will understand.”

“Oh, I don’t know about _that_ ,” she said.

“They will. They have to. You’re their little girl, remember? You were hurt. They’ll understand.”

“I guess you have a point,” she said with a smile. “I’ll try to get up the nerve to tell them tomorrow. _After_ the test.”

Sam returned her smile. “We _do_ have too much to think about these days, don’t we?”

“We sure do.” She paused, then said shyly, “Well, I don’t know about you, but I need some chocolate. Is it OK if I go make some brownies? I know you’re probably not hungry, but...” She blushed. “Well, I’m _always_ hungry anymore.”

“Sure.” He watched her go into the kitchen and listened as she began gathering the ingredients.

“How did you know she was lying, Sam?” Al wanted to know.

“I could see it in her eyes,” Sam whispered, still looking toward the kitchen.

“You can read so much in people’s eyes, Sam. I wish I could do that.”

Sam turned to his friend and grinned happily. “Well, anyway, that’s one hurdle down.”

Reading the handlink, Al frowned somberly. “Not yet, Sam. Susan still dies on Monday.”

Sam’s brow furrowed. “But she realizes now it wasn’t her fault. She’s going to tell her parents. What happens—they don’t believe her?”

“I don’t know, Sam. All Ziggy can say is there’s a ninety-three percent chance if she tells Ben about the baby, then she won’t go through with the pregnancy and she dies in his car Monday night at 9:37.”

“So all I have to do is keep her from telling Ben.”

“That’s what Ziggy says,” Al reported.

“What about the police? I have to get her to turn Ben in for what he did to her.”

“I don’t know about that,” Al said with frustration. “It happened months ago. There’s not really anything they can do. And besides, in the seventies, women didn’t really report date rape, even right away. These creeps just got away with it and left the women with the emotional scars. Or like Susan, with a baby. Now, Susan has spunk. I think she’s bearing up very well after all she’s been through. But even if she did report it, who would believe her? Date rape wasn’t even considered a crime until the eighties. And even then it was next to impossible to get a conviction.”

“So in other words,” Sam said slowly, facing the kitchen, “Ben isn’t going to be punished for his crime. Susan is.”

Sometimes Al hated it when he was right. “In all probability, Sam.”

“But what about that other girl—that leap, that time when I leaped into the girl whose boyfriend.... Remember?”

Al rolled his eyes. “Of _course_ I remember.”

“Well, if I remember correctly, that guy was convicted!”

“Yeah, Sam, but that was in 1980. And you seem to be forgetting the fact that the guy didn’t _get_ convicted until he beat _you_ up. Remember? And the girl’s parents caught him doing it. He was convicted of battery, not rape.”

“You’re right, Al,” he said quietly. “I did forget.”

Susan, who had a way of entering a room at a particularly dramatic moment, entered from the kitchen. “Who’s Al? Your imaginary friend?” She had a playful twinkle in her eye as she licked brownie batter from a plastic spatula.

Sam, thrown for a moment, handled it quite well: “Wha –?”

Then he recovered rather nicely: “Oh, er, uh, I—eh—yeahhhh.” He chuckled a decidedly put-on sort of chuckle.

Susan sat down on the couch rather perkily. “What’s he look like?   Wait! Don’t tell me! He’s about... five foot ten... dark hair... dark eyes... middle-aged... wears really garish clothing.... a ring on this finger, and.... smokes a cigar!”

She sat back triumphantly at her on-the-spot creativity—not something the analytical teenager was particularly known for.

Sam and Al gaped at her, stunned, like a couple of fish.

“Yeah!” Sam breathed in wonder before he could stop himself.

Susan was delighted. “Am I right?” She laughed suddenly, remembering that afternoon in the classroom. “Oh, I know! ‘Al’ must have been the one smoking the cigar at school, today! I _told_ you I smelled smoke!”

Al kept a wary eye on her as he punched instructions into the handlink. “I’d better go now, Sam.” He punched the last button and was gone.

Susan sighed somewhat dreamily. “We still have it, don’t we?”

“Have...what?” he asked, although thinking he knew quite well. The words “Corsican Syndrome” came to mind, although he didn’t think it applied in this case. He couldn’t put his finger on why.

“You know. _It._ That weird psychic link or whatever. It’s a little scary, isn’t it? It’s almost like we share the same thoughts and feelings. Like the Corsican Brothers—only _not_ formerly conjoined twins.”

Sam involuntarily shuddered. But he had more pressing matters to discuss. “Susan, I don’t think you should tell Ben about the pregnancy. He’s very irrational. We don’t know how he’ll react to this news.” Actually, he had a pretty good idea.

“Don’t worry. I don’t ever want to see him again, let alone talk to him about this.” Come to think of it, she didn’t have the energy to talk about it with Tom any longer, either. “Now, the brownies will be ready in twenty minutes. I think I might have just enough brain capacity to review elemental physics in that time.”

He nodded, understanding, and picked up the text book. She smiled at him with gratitude—not just for helping her study or supporting her through this ordeal. But for helping open her eyes to what Ben had done to her. She hated the thought of being a victim, but she thought it was better than blaming herself for what had happened.

She just didn’t know what she was going to do when she had to leave him later in the summer to go to college, leave her best friend, and bear a child all alone.


	6. The Test

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the day of the scholarship exam, and Susan is tested in more ways than one.

The next morning, Sam woke at six. He showered, combed his hair, and brushed his teeth. He always felt really weird using a stranger’s toothbrush. He spent the morning alone but couldn’t get Susan off his mind.

At noon, Al arrived. Sam had just sat down to lunch, and he noticed Al was carrying a brown paper sack. “Mind if I join you, Sam?”

“No, of course I don’t mind. It’s nice to have the company.”

Al “sat” down across the table from Sam, opened his sack, and pulled out a sandwich. “How did things go last night with the exam preparations?”

“Really well,” Sam replied. “I think she’s going to do really well.”

“Yeah, that Susan’s a real sharp kid.”

Sam nodded in agreement, adding, “She’s really beautiful.”

Al shot him a warning look. “Now don’t you start getting ideas about her, Sam.”

“What?” Sam exclaimed, shocked. “What do you take me for? You?”

“Naw, Susan’s different,” Al said with a gentle scowl. “It’s not just her age. She has a certain—sweetness. Innocence.” He looked down and the side of his mouth twitched slightly. “She reminds me a lot of Beth.”

Sam felt a twinge of guilt at the mention of his best friend’s first wife. He saw the distant glimmer of pain on Al’s face whenever he mentioned her—which was rarely.

“I never met a girl who reminded me more of Beth than Susan does,” Al said softly, who subconsciously felt that he had indeed met Susan—or at least, he felt that she had met him. Somehow.

Sam felt another guilty stab for his roundabout accusation of lechery regarding Susan. He actually felt the same way about her. She _was_ beautiful—her large, dark eyes; her thick, dark hair—but that wasn’t what he’d meant when he’d said that. It was true that her face caught the eye, but it was what was beyond her physical beauty that was so attractive. Her sweetness, her intelligence, her sense of fun and goodness and life and love. She felt so familiar to him, too, but he couldn’t place it—couldn’t explain the sense of loss and longing he felt when he thought of her.

“I know what you mean, Al.”

After that, the two of them sat, each with his own internal, wistful thoughts.

********

Sam was having the most vivid dream. He was a young man, about fifteen, and he was riding in the backseat of the family station wagon. His father, John Beckett, was driving, a cigarette between his lips. His mother was in the passenger’s seat, talking animatedly about Katie’s music recital. In the dream, his younger sister was a promising pianist and had won the blue ribbon at the school talent show.

“Whaddaya think of that, Tom?” Mr. Beckett said, looking into the rearview mirror.

It was as if he were looking at a reflection of his own face, decades into the future.

He started to answer and heard his own words echoed by the teenager sitting next to him—Sam’s older brother, whose name also happened to be Tom.

Sam made an extremely clever joke about being part of a Venn diagram, which made his entire family crack up with laughter. Sam was especially pleased because he knew that in reality, no one in his family knew what a Venn diagram was or why the joke was funny. He continued to improvise a hilarious comedic monologue about how quantum electrodynamics was, in fact, the most precisely verified of all theories.[1]

His father’s laughter turned to coughing, and he begged Sam to stop joking. But Sam was on a roll and feeling so good and content, having just the right quips on hand, the power to make his family laugh. Suddenly, John Beckett’s coughing was out of control. It grew louder and louder, like the crashing of thunder, and the car swerved. He clutched his chest as his wife screamed and grabbed the steering wheel.

There was a deafening crash. His mother, not having worn her seatbelt, went through the windshield. His brother, having sat directly behind her, followed. Sam turned and stared at his father in front of him. He was hunched forward, motionless, his head against the car horn, which blared unendingly.

********

Sam awoke with a jolt, clutching his pillow, to the sound of a car horn. It wasn’t a long, extended sound—just a few polite beeps. Sam’s eyes darted toward the alarm clock on the nightstand: 7:34 a.m.

The doorbell rang and he somehow knew in his gut that it was the police, telling him they’d found a teenaged girl dead in her boyfriend’s car.

He let out a tremendous sigh of relief when he opened the door and saw a bright-eyed Susan standing before him, grinning expectantly. He still wasn’t quite lucid, but he knew at least that nobody had died—yet. His thoughts were beginning to focus.

He realized his dream had been a combination of Tom’s residual memory, what he knew about the accident that had killed Tom’s parents and Susan’s brother, and a familiar guilty anxiety about his own father’s death. He could vaguely recall having tried to convince his father to live a healthier lifestyle but his father ignoring him. Sam still couldn’t shake the feeling he should have tried harder.

But here was Susan standing before him now, looking at him as though he were supposed to be doing something, but he had no idea what. She glanced at his robe, which was opened just a little more than it should have been, and she looked away, red-faced. She never would have dreamed that Tom slept without any clothes on.

She coughed to distract him from the fact she had seen what she’d seen. “Tom, what’s wrong? Are you sick?”

“Sick?” he repeated, hastily retying his robe. “No...”

She grinned sympathetically. “You overslept? Well, that’s OK.” She turned to face her parents in the car on the street. She waved them on. “We’re a little early, anyway,” she added.

“Oh, it’s _Sunday!_ ” Sam realized. Obviously, the Blakes were a church-going family. And apparently so was Tom. He should have anticipated this.

“Yeah,” Susan said. “Whadja think it was? Saturday?”

“Yeah, I—I guess I did.”

“You musta been having a really good dream,” she said mischievously, then blushed again, unwittingly thinking of what lay beneath his robe. Her hormones were really going crazy these days.

“Not really,” he informed her dryly. “Come on in. I’ll only be a minute.”

Susan sat on the couch and began leafing through copies of _Time_ magazine, which Tom always had stacked neatly on the coffee table. "Richard Nixon, Man of the Year," she said, rolling her eyes. "They'll give that honor to anyone." She tossed that issue aside. Sam hurriedly went into the bathroom to shower and shave.

“Take your time,” Susan called as she skimmed a brief article about the Vietnam War. “Mom and Dad just wanted to ask Father Sarrazine to do a special blessing for me at Mass today about my test. Which is just about the most embarrassing thing I can imagine. It’s bad enough everyone hates me for being smart. Now we have to advertise it in church. I whined and cajoled but it did me no good.” She sighed. “Then again, I guess I can use all the prayers I can get.”

“Susan, trust me, you’re going to do fine,” Sam called. “You know all the material backward and forward. So just relax and don’t make yourself sick worrying about it.”

Susan listened to his encouraging advice. But then she started to feel a little sick anyway. She put her hand to her belly to steady the waves of nausea. Her lips began to tingle. She knew what that feeling was, and it sure as heck wasn’t test anxiety. She jumped up from the couch and dashed into the bathroom, past Sam, who was holding a razor at the sink, clad only in a white bath towel, his face half-shaven. She ignored his state of undress this time, made a beeline for the commode, and proceeded to get very sick, despite his advice to the contrary.

Sam quickly set the razor down on the counter and crouched next to her. He reached up and held her hair back protectively. When she was through, Sam poured her a Dixie cup of cool tap water. She rinsed her mouth and spat into the toilet. He poured her another and she took a sip. With a bleak smile, she wanly commented, “And here I thought I’d passed the morning sickness phase.”

********

Sam and Susan walked into church a little late, found Frank and Christine’s pew, and sat down next to them. Sam had never experienced a post-Vatican II Catholic Mass before, but he thought he could remember having attended one that had been performed in Latin. He followed Susan’s responses and gestures and quickly grew tired of the routine: stand, sit, kneel, repeat.

Sam found the sermon to be interesting, however, and felt that Fr. Sarrazine was an engaging priest. The sermon was filled with personal anecdotes and humor that tied in with the biblical readings. And during the ritual, as promised, Fr. Sarrazine briefly and tactfully asked for a special blessing “for our high school seniors who are taking a very important scholarship examination this afternoon,” which was skillfully sandwiched between blessings for the souls of the departed, members of the congregation facing surgery that week, and the safe return of our boys in uniform.

Susan smiled widely and whispered to Sam, “I love that man!” which prompted her father to frown sternly and her mother to “shush” her.

After Mass, they filed out into the vestibule where the pastor was greeting members of the congregation as they departed. Frank and Christine shook his hand and thanked him for the blessing. They tried to hide their disappointment that he hadn’t personalized it, as if God wouldn’t know He was supposed to bestow special favor upon their child. But Susan’s shy, earnest smile told him how much she appreciated the diplomatic way he’d handled it.

They approached the door to the parking lot and were surprised to see Ben standing in front of it. He was wearing a brown sport coat, tan chinos, and scuffed brown loafers. Sam took Susan’s hand protectively and held her back. Susan understood but wanted to handle this in her own way.

“You guys go on. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Sam was urgent. His gut told him this was a make or break moment. “Susan, I think we should just go.”

“I’ll be OK, Tom. I won’t say anything I shouldn’t. Trust me.”

Sam hesitated, then nodded. He and her parents left through the door, giving the two teenagers worried glances behind them in seemingly choreographed unison. Susan smiled briefly at their collective overprotectiveness.

“Hi,” Ben said awkwardly.

Susan’s smile vanished. “It’s been a while since I saw you here. Christmas Eve, wasn’t it?” she asked icily.

“Susan, I don’t know why you’re so mad at me,” he said obliviously. “I just want everything to be the way it was.”

“Ben, it can _never_ be the way it was,” she said in a loud, angry whisper. “Not after what you did to me!”

Ben seemed shocked. “Wha’d I ever do to you? You’re the one who spends all your time over at that lame teacher’s house. You can’t tell me you spend all that time studying. You ain’t foolin’ nobody.”

“You be quiet!” she hissed furiously, as annoyed by his intentional poor grammar as she was his loud accusation in front of her fellow churchgoers. She could already see this had been a mistake. “I don’t have to stand her and listen to this. I have better things to do.” She walked past him.

“Yeah,” he said to her back. “Screw Mr. Hunter.”

She wheeled to face him again, this time red-faced. “ _Don’t you dare talk like that to me in church!_ I’m going _home_ to look over my notes and then I’m taking the scholarship test. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“After the test, then,” he said.

“ _What_ after the test? After the test what?” she sputtered.

“I’ll pick you up. We’ve got some things to talk over.”

“No. I told you three months ago I didn’t want to see you anymore. Especially after what you did to me in February. And _don’t_ act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. You knew how I felt about.... _that_. And you made me do it anyway. And I’m done feeling guilty about it—like it was a choice I made. I didn’t make that choice. _You_ did.” Her anger was growing and with it, her guilt. She had been raised to be a nice girl, a polite girl, and here she was, throwing accusations in his face. And in church, no less. All he wanted was her love, and wasn’t it her duty to love all of God’s creatures? She was casting him aside. Didn’t he deserve forgiveness?

Ben sensed her shift in attitude and insinuated himself into the chink in her armor. “Susan, please,” he began. “I—I didn’t know you felt that way about what we did. I thought it was beautiful—what we shared. What you gave me.” He sighed shakily. “I just love you so much. And I thought you loved me, too.”

Susan was exasperated. Not so much with Ben and his transparent play for sympathy, but for herself for actually sympathizing. She knew better.

“I thought I loved you, too, Ben. But I didn’t. Not in that way. It’s not personal, it just... didn’t work out. I’m sorry.”

She paused to let her words sink in, still trying to spare his feelings and let him down easily. “I have to go now.” She started to leave.

“Susan, wait! Please....” She turned and saw his eyes filling with tears. She drew a shaky breath, shook her head, and walked out the door.

As soon as her back was turned, Ben’s expression changed from that of an abandoned puppy to that of a ferocious pit bull. He stalked off in the opposite direction, bumping into Fr. Sarrazine on his way out the back door, leaving the priest to wonder what sort of prayer might be fitting for that young man.

********

A few hours later, at a quarter to four, Susan’s dad drove her up to the circle drive in front of the student union building at Oakdale College. He put the car into park and sat looking straight ahead, his hands on the wheel.

Susan sat in the passenger seat looking out the window at the door to the building. “Well,” she said, stalling. “I imagine this is it.”

“Are you sure you know where the classroom is?” her father asked. “Do you want me to go in with you?”

Susan smiled indulgently. “I can find it, Dad.”

Her father became gruff, already missing his baby, the only child of three—no, _two_ —that he had left. “We don’t care _how_ you do on this this thing. You’re just a kid, we get it. They’re all older, there’s a lot of ‘em, from all over the north half of the state. Just... do your best. That’s all we can hope for.” This wasn’t really how he’d hoped his encouraging little pre-exam pep talk would go. But Susan understood his intention.

“I will, Dad.”

“Your mother and I are very proud of you. No matter how you do.”

A small chuckle escaped her lips. “I know, Dad,” she said seriously. “I love you.” She gave him a hug.

“I love you, too, Susan.” She started to get out of the car, but her father interrupted her. “Oh! Susan?” He had suddenly remembered something he had wanted to tell her. Something very important.

“Yeah?”

“Way to tell Ben where to shove it!”

Susan burst into laughter and felt the tension drain away. “Oh, Dad!” she said admonishingly. “You’re awful!”

********

Part of Susan wished she _had_ let her father walk her in. Walking into the large student union building made her feel like a small child, alone in a vast, frightening world in which she did not belong. She longed to feel her daddy’s strong, callused hand protectively over hers. To know that whatever hideous monsters or other mysterious dangers that lurked within the halls of this place, he would vanquish them all for her. Because that was what fathers did.

But she would have to vanquish these on her own. With God’s help.

“Good afternoon, Susan,” a deep voice intoned. For a split second, she thought it _was_ God. She jumped, realized it wasn’t the Almighty after all, and bit back an annoyed “Don’t _do_ that _,”_ glad that she had the presence of mind not to utter. It wasn’t as though he was a mere specter, appearing out of nowhere, after all.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Bradley.”

“Are you nervous?”

She was getting somewhat tired of the question. “A little.”

“Don’t be. Just take it easy and I know you’ll do fine. And whatever the outcome, you can be very proud of how far you’ve come this year.”

The men in her life were just full of ringing endorsements today. She missed Tom.

“Thank you, sir.”

“And Susan, I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “The first half is _much_ more difficult than the second. Once you get through the first part, the rest is smooth sailin’.” He accompanied this with a palm-down hand gesture, as if demonstrating how smooth the sailin’ would be. Susan grinned widely. It was so sweet of him to share that with her. As an alumnus of the Phoenix Institute, he had been administrating their local physics scholarship examinations for years, and she knew how seriously he took the responsibility. He would never divulge anything that would give her an advantage, but she appreciated his effort to calm her. She thanked him sincerely and he patted her shoulder as he returned to the auditorium where the test would take place.

In spite of herself, she felt a funny little twisting feeling in her belly. _A pregnant schoolgirl crush on Dr. Bradley now? Really? These hormones are out of control._

After registering at the desk, she too, entered the auditorium and found her seat. She looked at the clock on the far wall. It was 3:55 p.m. Dr. Bradley took his spot behind the podium and read the testing procedures. Susan looked around at the mature faces all around her. Mostly high school seniors but a few college undergraduates as well.

She had never felt so young or so outclassed.

At 4:00 sharp, the test began. Susan marveled at how very _prompt_ Dr. Bradley always was. It seemed that no matter what he had to read or explain or do, he always managed to start an exam exactly on the hour, without a second to spare, without skipping a single instruction, not so much as a—

She was stalling again. She took a deep, almost gasping breath, and opened her test booklet.

********

Precisely two hours later, Dr. Bradley’s voice rang out: “Pencils down. There will be a twenty-minute intermission. Please feel free to get up, stretch your legs, use the facilities, and get refreshments. The final half of the examination will begin at six-twenty and will last until eight o’clock.”

Susan felt very good about the first half of the test as she made her way out into the hall to seek out a drinking fountain. All the elemental physics questions had seemed fairly straightforward and the answers had rolled out of her pencil with little effort. As Dr. Bradley had divulged, the rest of the evening should be smooth sailin’. She smiled again at his terminology. He so seldom used colloquialisms and she had _never_ heard him drop a “g” before.

Two hours sitting still in a chair had not done her back or legs any favors so after she took her drink, she continued wandering the halls, stretching her muscles. Now that the exam was over, she was determined to get more physical exercise these next few months. She wanted to be physically fit and healthy when her baby was born in November. She wondered what sort of exercise facilities the Phoenix Institute had.

As she turned the corner, she felt a hand grab her arm and pull her toward a wall.

“Ben!” she said, startled and irritated. “What’re you doing here?

He continued to pull her arm roughly. “You’re comin’ with me.”

Wrenching away from him, she could smell his breath. “You’ve been drinking.”

“God, you really _are_ smart!” he said with a sneer as he dragged her toward a door.

“I’ve only got fifteen minutes ‘til the second half of the—”

He stopped walking and faced her. “You’re. Coming. With _me_.”

He yanked her arm. She tried not to wince, but she knew instinctively she could not get into his car. She was terrified but defiant and struggled all the way to the door. He opened it and she realized they were exiting into an all-but-empty parking lot at the back of the building. She started to scream but he clapped a hand to her mouth. He shoved her out the door, across the sidewalk, and into his waiting, illegally parked car.

 

 

 

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Physics_Venn_diagram.PNG>


	7. Peaceful, Easy Feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam has a confusing dream and comforts Susan as she tells him what happened after Ben kidnapped her. Their feelings for each other grow more complicated.

Sam’s sister Katie was in trouble. He was running through a narrow hallway that was lined with drinking fountains. They were spraying a colorful arch above him, forming a beautiful, watery bridge, but he remained dry.

When he finally reached the end of the hall, he realized it wasn’t Katie; it was Don Ameche. The dapper Hollywood actor, circa mid-1940s, was shackled to the wall like a prisoner in a medieval dungeon. There was an elevator next to him, but all the buttons were on the outside. Sam somehow knew that if he pushed the correct button combination, he would release the shackles that were holding Mr. Ameche prisoner.

He studied the buttons, which were labeled in a hieroglyphic-like language he could not read. Suddenly the elevator door opened and a small child toddled out, naked but for a cloth diaper. The child had curly blonde hair, small wings, and oddly familiar eyes—Susan’s eyes. Sam knew it as a cherub sent from God or Fate or Whoever to help him save Don Ameche.

The cherub fluttered upward on its gossamer wings and reached a chubby finger toward the buttons. Sam suddenly realized the baby’s eyes were not Susan’s, but Ben’s. The baby turned and flashed a nasty grin at Sam, whose heart stopped. He lunged for the cherub, threw it as hard as he could back into the elevator, rapidly pushed a combination of buttons, and the door slammed shut. He could hear the infant’s wails growing fainter and fainter as the elevator went down and down and down. Sam knew the elevator was out of control. It would crash at the bottom and the baby would be killed.

“No! My baby!”

Sam turned to the shackled actor but instead he saw a beautiful dark-haired woman with large, dark, doe eyes. She was so familiar to him. He felt that he knew her thoughts.

“Donna?” he whispered uncertainly, as the elevator hit the bottom with a deafening crash.

Sam felt himself wake up with one loud thump of his heart, but he could not move. His eyes were closed, but it was as if they were open and he was still staring at his wife, mesmerized.

But before he could speak again, the elevator bell rang, and the door slowly opened...

*******

Sam’s eyes opened along with the elevator door in his dream. He was staring in the dark at his alarm clock, which read 11:50 p.m.

He heard the elevator bell ring again, but this time he realized it was the doorbell. He finally shook himself awake. He got up, threw on a robe, and stumbled slowly to the front door.

He had already forgotten the dream.

Sam opened the door and looked out. Nothing. He started to close the door when he heard a soft sound. He looked down and gasped. Crumpled on his stoop, as if she’d crawled there (which, to a degree, she had) was Susan. Her hair was disheveled and her blouse was ripped. Her face was tearstained and she looked disoriented.

“Oh, my God! Susan!” He very gently scooped her into his arms and carried her inside, laying her on the couch. He examined her for serious injury or broken bones and found none.

Shaking but not weeping, Susan murmured, “I was wrong, Tom. There _is_ no good in him.”

“What happened? Why did he do this?”

Reluctantly she admitted, “I told him about the baby.”

Sam shook his head in frustration. “Oh, no...”

“I _had_ to,” she explained. “He—he wanted to...he tried to...” She unconsciously put her hand to her chest, clutching her torn blouse closed. “I just _had_ to.”

She wiped the tears from her face as they fell, not wanting him to see her cry. “And then he started hitting me. And _hitting_ me...”

She hid her face with her trembling hands. Not only had she finally been beaten by this bastard—physically now, as well as emotionally—but she had let Tom down. And for reasons she couldn’t understand, that hurt her worst of all.

Sam put his hands on her shoulders. “You have to tell your parents now.”

“No, I can’t,” she said, her voice cracking.

“Why _not_?”

“Dad would kill him. And they’ve been through too much already. Then I’d have to go to court or something and dredge this all up in front of a judge. Tell the world—my whole town—that I’m pregnant. You have no idea how humiliating that would be.”

“Yes,” Sam said sincerely. “I think I do.” He knew better than she could ever realize.

“No, you don’t. And besides, I still can’t prove it. Look at me. He didn’t hit my face. Do I have any bruises? And even if I did, he could just say I’d fallen and hurt myself.”

Sam nodded as the déjà vu swept over him. That was exactly what had happened to the girl he’d leaped into. Susan was either insightful or she was reading his mind. He rubbed his hand against her back comfortingly.

“I’m so sorry,” she was saying, “I know you said it was important not to tell him. But I couldn’t let him do that to me again, and I thought if I told him, he’d...respect that. But no...”

She tried to keep remain stoic but she lost the battle to her emotions. Her face crumpled embarrassingly and she leaned into his shoulder so he couldn’t see her cry. The warmth of his skin and the kindness of his arms seemed to melt her resolve and she felt her body give in to the sobs.

“I know, I know... Shhhh...” Sam sensed that it had been a long time since Susan had cried like that. She didn’t seem like a crier somehow.

In fact, Susan was _not_ a crier. Even as a baby, she had taken life in stride. New teeth, a runny nose, the stomach flu. She smiled through it all. She hadn’t even allowed herself a single tear when the police had come to tell them Patrick had died. Her parents had needed her to be strong for them. She had only indulged herself after the funeral. She slipped away to the car by herself, where she sobbed for two hours. Her parents hadn’t even missed her, and that was how she had planned it.

But after that, she couldn’t remember crying at all. Until now, when all she seemed to do was cry. _It must be the hormones_ , she thought. She felt ashamed now to be making such a scene, soaking Tom with her tears. She was acting like a baby and making him comfort her like he was her father.

But he wasn’t her father. He wasn’t even her brother. She knew that, of course, but she hadn’t really _thought_ about it before.

He was a man. A good friend, a confidant, and a teacher. But he was more than that. He was a strong, handsome, nice-smelling, extremely sensitive, gentle, caring, and sweet man.

And he was wearing nothing but a thin bathrobe.

She pulled herself together mentally. _And_ he cared for her deeply, she knew, as he had ever since they’d been kids. When Ronnie Olson had pulled her hair and called her a fat cow when she was eleven, wasn’t it Tom who sat her down and told her she was beautiful and Ronnie needed to get his eyes examined?

And when Carl Brannigan had punched her in the face, wasn’t it Tom who had punched him right back, knocking him out cold? She had noticed Tom’s muscles then, even though she was only eight.

She was much too practical to believe in Prince Charming coming to the rescue of a damsel in distress. But that did not change the fact that Tom had rescued her from distress on more than one occasion. Come to think of it, Susan had been the victim of a lot of physical violence from the boys in this town over the years.

She suddenly felt old and world-weary. Where was the carefree youth she was supposed to have enjoyed? Why had her life been full of such misery and pain and injustice? She felt old beyond her years. She believed Tom did, too. He certainly seemed older than twenty right now. He seemed _really_ old. He seemed at least thirty.

Her eyes were closed by now and her crying had stopped. She had never felt so safe or so warm or so loved. His face was close to hers, whispering soft, soothing words. She inhaled a long, shaky breath. He smelled so clean, so good, so warm, so...handsome. She could go on smelling him all night long. She opened one eye. She realized then that her face was pressed right up against his naked chest. It was warm and alive and breathing beneath her. The thick, soft hairs on his chest brushed her cheek. She was sorely tempted to run her fingers through it. She felt something stir inside that she’d never felt before. It was far different from the goofy schoolgirl crush she had on Dr. Bradley.

Only she _had_ felt it before. Just months before, in Ben’s car, when he had put his strong arm around her and pulled her close to him. He had a different smell, true. More leather and sweat and Brut. And _brute_. She had refused to admit, even to herself, that it had really excited her. The danger that was Ben.

But soon enough she realized what danger was and that it wasn’t exciting. It was frightening. It was horrible. It hurt really badly and it made her bleed.

And now, here she was, physically closer to Tom than she had been to Ben that night, feeling those feelings far more strongly than she had for Ben that night. It wasn’t right. It was dirty. And it frightened her. And excited her.

She sat up so quickly it made her head spin. “I—I have to go now,” she gasped. “It’s really late. My parents’ll be so worried.”

She and Sam stared into each other’s eyes for a moment or two. Their faces were too close, their lips almost touching.

“All right,” he whispered.

Unsteadily, she got up, straightened her hair a bit, and turned for the door. Then she did a double take as she realized wildly that Tom’s chest was totally hairless.

What had she felt brushing against her cheek? It made no sense to her, but in reality it made perfect sense. But she was not privy to the secrets of quantum leaping, so she could not understand the significance of this discrepancy.

Sam didn’t like what he had been feeling any more than she had. First of all, she was only sixteen—not a huge age difference from Tom’s twenty years, but still inappropriate even for him. But it went beyond that—even Al saw it. Susan had a quality that made her seem untouchable. Goodness permeated her very being and flowed out of her like beams of radiant light. It was almost tangible. She was like Dante’s Beatrice—pure and virtuous, the ideal woman, to be placed on a pedestal but never to be touched.

It really wasn’t at all unlike what Ben had felt about her.

If Susan had any idea how she was perceived by these men, she would have been embarrassed, amused, and annoyed. She knew she was far from beautiful, far from virtuous. She was definitely having some unvirtuous thoughts about Tom and his hairy/hairless chest right now. Lust was a sin, even if you didn’t act upon it.

And she started making plans to attend confession as soon as possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's weird, but every time they say "Donna Eleese," I think they're saying "Don Ameche."


	8. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The projected date of Susan's death arrives, and it all hits the fan.

“I know!” the phys ed teacher was saying. “I just got a ticket for going thirty-five on Mandie Avenue. The police department is spending just a little too much time waiting around for me to go five miles over the posted speed limit, if you ask me.”

“My brother’s a cop,” said one of the math teachers. “Adam McNicol. You get pulled over, just mention his name and they’ll probably rip up the ticket.

Sam sat in the teacher’s lounge, eating his lunch and ignoring the conversation about speed traps and how to beat them. He was thinking about Susan. Her inclination to keep last night’s incident to herself was self-destructive, but it was also a normal human response to trauma. He only hoped she'd overcome her fears and opened up to them.

He packed up his trash and threw it in the bin.

“All this paper waste makes me sick!” Sam jumped at the sound of Al’s voice. “Do you realize how many years it’s gonna be before they start putting recycle bins in schools?”

Sam ignored Al’s pointless prosthelytizing until he reached in the hall outside the teacher’s lounge. “Al, I thought I asked you not to sneak up on me.”

“I didn’t sneak up on you,” Al said innocently. “I opened the Imaging Chamber door. You just didn’t hear me!”

“I’m sorry, Al,” Sam said, shaking his head. “I guess I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Susan?”

“Yeah. Last night she came over after the ex—” Sam stopped talking as a student walked by, glanced at him, shook his head, and moved on. Sam ducked into the backstage area of the school’s theater. “Ben showed up after the exam and tried to rape her again. She told him she was pregnant, hoping to stop him, and so he beat her.”

“Oh, my God.” Al shook his head and started requesting data from Ziggy via the handlink. “What did she say, did she call the police? Is she hurt bad? Bruised up?”

“No, Al. She was hurt, but he didn’t leave a mark.”

“That lousy—”

“What does Ziggy say about the odds of Susan dying tonight?”

“Well, she says there’s only a forty-nine percent probability Susan’ll go through with the pregnancy. What exactly did she say last night?”

“Not very much. She was awfully upset, obviously, but she was in a hurry to get home so her parents wouldn’t worry.” He sighed. “I don’t think she’s told them yet.” He checked his watch. “I have to get to class now. She should be there. We can see how she’s doing.”

********

Susan got to class before Sam and Al did. She walked in and the entire room was suddenly silent. She looked from face to face. Every eye was on her. They were whispering, snickering, trying to stare her down. “And we thought she was just getting fat,” Jeff Hinson said to his friend Mike Brewster.

Mike chuckled, then raised his voice. “Hey, Susan, wanna go out this weekend?”

The class laughed. The remarks weren’t funny, but Susan’s predicament certainly seemed to be to them.

“Go home, slut.” That was from Tammy McNulty. This didn’t seem fair to Susan, because it was common knowledge that Tammy had very loose morals when it came to boys. She was probably on The Pill, so she hadn’t had the bad luck of getting pregnant herself. Therefore, Tammy was innocent, but Susan was a slut.

She took a breath and continued on to her desk. She refused to let these closed-minded classmates bring her down. She was strong. She knew she had nothing to be ashamed of.

“Whore.”

Jeff and Mike turned to look at Becky Greeson. Even they thought that was a little out of line—especially coming from her. But the other girls in class seemed to agree. At least, none of them came to her defense. They wouldn’t even look her in the eye. She wasn’t sure if they were ashamed of her or ashamed of themselves.

Despite her attempt to withstand the taunts, Susan could feel the blood rising in her face, pounding in her ears. Her throat felt like it was being stretched like a balloon. Her breathing grew heavy and her eyes felt hot.

“You’re disgusting,” Tammy said, a sly smile on her face. “Go home and take your little shame with you.”

Susan put a protective hand over her belly.

“You give our school a bad name,” added Becky.

“So innocent,” Jeff mocked. “Such a liar.”

“Seriously,” Mike said. “Friday night. You and me. Backseat of my car.”

Susan’s heart thudded in her chest at the words. She stood up reflexively, ready to fight him off. The class gasped and Mike sat back in his seat. Susan’s fists were clenched and she opened her mouth to speak. It took three tries but she managed to choke out the words, “He raped me. He _raped_ me!” before running out of the room.

She raced down the hall, not knowing where she was heading. Sam and Al were turning a corner when she ran past them. “Susan!” Sam called, but she ducked down a corridor. They ran toward her but she had cut through the library and they missed her.

They went to the physics classroom and from the hallway, they could see and hear that the class was in an uproar. The Leaper and the Observer looked at each other before walking into the room. Every head turned toward Sam and the room fell silent.

And they stared.

“Looks like the shit hit the fan, Sam.”

Sam stared quietly at Ben, who sat defiantly upright in his seat. He said to the class, “Turn to page two-fourteen and do the review questions. I have something I have to do.”

********

For the rest of the afternoon, Sam attempted to locate Susan. She had left the school without permission and all calls to her house went unanswered. He stopped by the Blakes’ house after school but there was no answer at the door, either.

That evening he was finishing up a bowl of stale corn flakes just before sundown when Al appeared.

“Any luck?” Al asked.

“None.” Sam placed the bowl and spoon into the sink and ran water over them.

The doorbell rang and the men hurried for the door. Sam opened it. Susan stood before him, her face pale and drawn, her eyes red.

“I told my parents,” she said without emotion. “My life here is over.”

The words struck Sam. “I’m...sorry,” he began.

“Dad couldn’t even _look_ at me,” she said, sweeping past him, leaving him to close the door. “Mom was crying when I left. The whole thing is history repeating itself.”

“Susan, I’m sure we can explain—”

“You don’t think I’ve spent half the day trying? I’m looking for an apartment tomorrow. I’m not going back to school. I can’t face that again.”

“Susan, that’s crazy. You can’t get an apartment. You’re too young and you have no money. And you have to finish school. You can stay with me.” This was actually ideal. He could keep an eye on her and keep her safe.

“Are you kidding me?” she said furiously. “There’s _nothing_ you can do to help me!” She turned her back on him and said fiercely, “If you’d just given me the money I asked for in the first place.... But now it’s too late to go back.”

“Susan, I’m so sorry.” He approached her and cautiously placed his hands on her shoulders. She didn’t shrug them off. “I really thought this was the right thing. But... the scholarship. You can still go to college. I’ll find you a lawyer to handle the adoption, or if you want to keep the baby, we’ll figure out—”

She wheeled and faced him, an anguished expression on her face. “Tom. There’s not gonna _be_ any college.”

“But why not?”

She inhaled slowly, holding back tears. “I didn’t finish the test.”

Sam was stunned. “You didn’t finish the...?”

“Ben came and took me before I could take the second half.”

Al silently requested data from Ziggy. “This isn’t good, Sam,” he warned, reading the handlink. “Her odds are getting worse. Keep her _here._ Don’t let her go.”

“Dad said they’d let me stay at home if I gave up college and kept the baby,” she said.

“So maybe that’s good. They’re not going to throw you out.”

“ _If_ I keep my baby, Tom!” she snapped. “That means throwing my _life_ out. I told them I wanted to give the baby to someone who could give it a good life, who wanted it so badly. I don’t want my baby to grow up knowing I resent it for ruining my life. But Dad said, ‘Susan, you made your bed; now you gotta lay in it!’”

She turned away, covering her face with her hands, and silently sobbed.

Sam spoke quietly, reassuringly, trying not to show his frustration. “Susan, we’ve been over this. It wasn’t your fault, what Ben did to you. Why don’t you try to explain what really happened that night?”

Slowly she turned back to him and said gravely, “Don’t...you think...I tried?”

Sam glanced behind him at Al as it dawned on him. “They didn’t believe you,” he whispered. Al shook his head and looked at the floor.

“Out of everything,” she said with a humorless smile, “that’s what gets me the most. I’m their good little Catholic girl. And Ben is a juvenile delinquent and an atheist. But I’m the one who made my own bed and has to lie in it.”

“Susan, I’m so sorry,” Sam said, reaching for her with an outstretched hand.

“I have to go,” she interrupted, breaking away from him and heading for the door.

“No!” he said sharply. He took a deep breath and tried again, more gently. “I mean...you need a friend right now. Stay here.”

“I can’t stay with you. That’s exactly where they’ll come looking. And you’re in enough trouble as it is.”

“What do you mean?”

She looked him in the eye and said with a wry half-grin, “They think it’s yours.”

“ _Mine?_ ”

She chuckled grimly. “Yeah. Nice, huh? They couldn’t believe I’d ‘let’ Ben do anything like that to me. _Let_ him! ‘Rape doesn’t happen on a _date_ , Susan. Rape only happens in a dark alley by some drug-addicted sex fiend!’ They actually accused me of blaming Ben just to make myself look innocent. And to clear your name.” She shook her head with resolution. “I’m getting out of here before they come after me.”

“Susan, wait—”

“I can’t be here when they come. I’ll be at the library for a while. Fourth floor. When they leave, come for me. I’ll stay here with you tonight.”

“Susan, I think you should—”

“I think _you_ should make plans to move away from this place. After a scandal like this, you won’t be able to get a job within a hundred miles of this town.”

And with that, she was out the back door.

“She may be right, Al,” Sam said thoughtfully.

“She’s absolutely right, Sam, but don’t stand here talking,” Al said frantically, eyes on the handlink. “Go after her! She still dies!”

Sam searched for and found his keys. He opened the front door only to receive a right cross to the nose, knocking him to the floor. It was Mr. Blake, and he was not happy.

Sam got to his feet but before he could speak, Mr. Blake took another swing at him. Having been through _that_ several times before, Sam anticipated the reaction and ducked the blow. A minor brawl ensued, but Sam was careful not the hurt the man. He finally got the upper hand with Mr. Blake lying on his back. Sam held him down.

“Frank, listen to me,” Sam said breathlessly through gritted teeth. “Susan’s in trouble.”

“You’re tellin’ me?” Mr. Blake shot back. “Where is she?”

“She just left here for the library. But I think she’s going over to Ben’s so he can take her to get an abortion.”

“You son of a bitch—” This blasphemous accusation renewed Mr. Blake’s strength. He pushed Sam away from him and stood up.

“No!” Sam said, struggling to keep the man at bay. “I need to stop her.”

“Well, then let’s go.”

“No,” Sam said severely. “I think you should stay out of this. Susan isn’t very likely to listen to you right now.”

“Who are you to tell me how my girl feels? She’s my daughter!”

Sam gave him a long, meaningful look before saying quietly, “All the more reason to believe her when she tells you the truth.”

Sam picked up his keys from the floor where he’d dropped them and left the man, his nose bleeding onto Tom’s living room carpet.

“Go to her, Al,” he commanded as he got into Tom’s car. “Let her know I’m coming.”

Al understood. “Gooshie, center me on Susan!”


	9. Into the Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Al do everything they can to reach Susan before it's too late.

Al found himself standing on the sidewalk as Susan rode down the street on her bicycle. Passing through him, she felt a slight chill but dismissed it as the evening air. Al pushed a button on the link, which allowed him to move steadily alongside the girl. A car approached Susan with the passenger window rolled down. Her heart leapt.

“Susan? Susan, I’m so sorry. I was just so upset.”

This time, her heart sank with disappointment and dread.

“I’d been drinking. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“Why don’t you leave me the hell alone?” she muttered without looking at him.

“Yeah!” Al agreed.

In the saddest voice he could muster, Ben cajoled, “I don’t blame you for bein’ mad. I can’t believe I hurt you like that. I realize it’s over between us, but I want you to know I still care about you.”

“Yeah, right,” Al and Susan said in unison. Al did a double take.

“I want to help you.”

Susan finally stopped her bike and Ben put his car in park. “You _told_ everyone. How could you do that to me?”

“C’mon, this isn’t the place to talk about it,” Ben said. “It’s getting dark. I’ll take you home.”

“I’m not going home; I’m going to the library.”

“Oh, don’t tell him _that_!” Al warned, a little too late.

“I’ll take you there, then.” He got out of the car. “C’mon.” He really sounded like a different person when he was sober. She hesitated. It was a long way to the library and it _was_ getting dark. And it would be closing soon.

All the while, Al was trying to reach Susan, waving his hands frantically in front of her. “No! Susan, don’t do it! Don’t do it! Don’t you get in that car!”

She got in the car.

“You got in the car.”

Ben put the car in gear and sped off with a squeal of his tires. Al punched some buttons and placed himself, seated, in the center of the backseat. “Why is it you can only hear me when it’s inconvenient?” he asked her grumpily.

“Slow down, Al Unser,” she said, referencing the previous year’s Indy 500 winner.

“I’m in a hurry,” he said casually. “Listen, I understand where you’d feel the way you did about what we did in February.”

“Oh, you do?” she said sarcastically, yet not fully believing him. Al made a “yeah, right” face at him.

“Yeah. It was your first time, and I know you were just...scared. And you felt like, ‘Oh, no, this is a sin, and now I’m goin’ to hell for bein’ a slut.’ So I can see where it’s just easier to say it was rape. And I’m really, really sorry you feel like you have to put it that way.”

Susan somehow managed to contain her fury. “Ben, doesn’t the word ‘no’ mean anything to you?”

He grinned and looked sidewise at her as he continued speeding down the road. “Honey, you gotta admit. We were both really worked up. And I know you have that good girl thing goin’. Obviously, you’ve gotta say ‘no,’ or I’d think you really wanted it, and then I wouldn’t respect you for being a sinful little tramp. But I’m sorry you got in trouble, and now I’m gonna make it up to you.”

“What do you mean ‘make it up to me’?” Susan asked. “And why are you driving so fast?”

“I’m in a hurry, I said. We’ve got an appointment.”

“What do you mean ‘we’—and where are we going? The library’s _that_ way.” Realization struck her like a brick in the face. “Stop the car.”

“Can’t. We’re on the highway now.”

“Ben, get off at the next exit. Take me home.”

“Shut up.”

Susan remained calm and unemotional. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Well, you’re _gonna_ do it.”

“No, you’re not, Susan,” Al promised. “I’ll be right back... Gooshie, center me on Sam!”

********

“Sam! Susan’s in trouble. Big trouble.”

“Ben?”

“How’dja guess? He’s taking her to have an abortion. They’re on Highway 69 right now, headed south.”

From the driver’s seat, Sam shot Al an incredulous look.

“That’s really the name of the highway, Sam!” Al said defensively, showing him the handlink. “Now, hurry up!”

“I can’t,” Sam said. “The teachers were saying how they’ve got speed traps set up all down this street. We’re almost to the highway. I’ll speed up then.”

“The poor kid,” Al said sympathetically. “Ben’s forcing her to do this. She doesn’t want to go through with it at all.”

“Could you go back and check on her? See if you can find out where they’re headed.”

“OK, Sam.”

********

He reappeared in Ben’s car. The radio was playing Michael Jackson’s new solo, a song about a young person’s ill-advised friendship with an ironically-named rat. Susan turned around and looked through him, then turned back.

“Susan?” Al said in surprise. “Can you hear me?”

She put a finger to her ear. _Great. Now I’m hearing voices in my head_.

“Ben, please,” she pleaded. “I don’t have any money for this.”

“I got some from my dad.”

“Oh, sure, he’s gonna fund his degenerate son’s ex-girlfriend’s abortion of her baby ostensibly with another guy?” she asked sarcastically in one breath.

He looked at her uncomprehendingly. “Huh?”

She rephrased the question. “Why’d he give you the money?”

“He didn’t.”

“You stole from your drunk dad. Why doesn’t this surprise me?”

“Real nice,” Al commented to Ben. To Susan, he requested, “Ask him where you’re going.”

“Where are you taking me?”

Al’s eyes opened wide in wonder. _Did I do that?_

“Some doctor in Huntington. Jeff gave me his address.” He held up a piece of paper.

“Ask to see it, Susan,” Al said, careful not to disrupt whatever psychic brain flow they appeared to have at the moment.

“Let me see.”

Ben handed her the paper, which had the name of the doctor, the address, and directions scrawled on it. Al looked over her shoulder and punched the data into his handlink.

“Good girl, Susan. See ya in a minute.”

********

“Sam, you won’t _believe_ this!” Al said, grinning ear to ear. “I got her to ask that creep for directions! Take the Huntington exit. About eight miles down, then turn right onto State Route 6. You’d better step on it. He’s goin’ over eighty miles an hour.”

“I don’t think this car will go that fast,” Sam said. “Whenever I get up to seventy-five, it starts to shake.”

“Well, _try_ , Sam! Let ‘er shake!”

“Al. How is she?”

“Hangin’ in there. The whole thing was his idea. He stole the money from his father.” He checked the link. “OK, turn left at this light. Go about three miles and then turn left at the four-way stop. _Four_ miles, then you get to a dirt road lined with houses. Turn _right_. It’s the...third house on the right. You got all that?”

“Got it.” Much like his photographic memory, Sam’s eidetic memory allowed him to recall things he heard only briefly. It was an incredibly handy set of skills for a Leaper.

Sam pictured Susan, strong and brave, being forced into this situation by her rapist. He also knew that on some level, it was what she had asked him for all along. She might very well be convinced it was the right thing to do, not understanding the danger this particular doctor posed for her or the ultimate fate she would face.

“Go to her,” he said. “Let her know you’re there. Let her know I’m coming.”

“Sure thing, Sam.”

There was an uncomfortable pause. Al was still there, and he had the handlink chirping and groaning.

“Al? Don’t tell me...”

“I’m _trying_ , Sam, I’m trying.” He looked up and bellowed, “Gooshie, what the hell’s goin’ on out there?”

*******

Ben turned onto a dirt road and hit a chuckhole.

 _All he needs to do is keep driving like this,_ Susan thought, _and I’ll lose the baby in this car._

They soon pulled into the driveway of a small house.

“This is it?” Susan asked in shock. “It’s not even an office. I am _not_ going in there.”

“Look, Susan. You wanna go to college and never see me again? Fine. You wanna stay home and raise Benny Junior, that’s _not_ fine, ‘cause I’m not gonna watch you raise _my_ kid with _your_ brother.”

“Tom is not going to raise my child,” Susan said. “But what do you care, anyway? And he’s not my brother!” she added defensively.

“What do I care? Watching what shoulda been mine play out in another man’s house? No. And tell me you wanna be a mommy instead of some important scientist, winnin’ a Noble Prize?”

“It’s No _bel_ , Ben. And don’t worry about it. Tom’s gonna help me give the baby up for adoption.”

Ben laughed derisively. “Yeah, right. Your parents’ll let that happen. You stay home, you get huge, everyone in town knows what’s goin’ on in there, and then suddenly... you’re just back home with Mom and Dad, just the three of you. And I know you. You’ll take one look at that baby and fall in love with it. After all...it’ll look just like me.”

“No, I won’t,” she vowed. “I won’t even look at it.”

“Ain’t takin’ the chance. Now you goin’ in there...or do I gotta drag you in?” He held a wad of cash out to her.

She thought long and hard about what he’d said. She wasn’t _obviously_ pregnant. She could tell everyone it had all been a lie. They would believe her eventually. She could try for the scholarship again in a year. Maybe there were other scholarships she could look into for the upcoming school year. Maybe Tom’s plan could still work after all. Except her parents would know she’d given up her baby—whether through adoption or.... this guy. And how could she be sure her baby would actually be placed in a good, loving home? What if they were terrible parents or had older children that mistreated the baby?

Her parents had friends at church who had been trying to adopt for years. Maybe she could give them her child? But they saw them every Sunday. How could she watch her child grow up with another family?

And for that matter, was it fair to bring a child into this horrible world, where we fight wars for no reason, discriminate against women, dark-skinned people, and people who don’t follow the same moral and religious beliefs as the predominant population? Where friends and family members hurt each other and your loved ones were taken away. If she could have her way, she herself would never have been born. Living just hurt too much.

 _Besides,_ an inner voice whispered, _how would the child feel, knowing his own mother had abandoned him?_

No, not “him.” Not “her.” _It_.

She took the money and got out of the car. As she walked toward the house, she called back faintly to Ben, “You’ve got a flat.”

And then she was inside.

The man who greeted her was in his late fifties. He wore a white coat but there were no diplomas or credentials on the wall. He took her to a room at the back of the house where a hospital bed sat in one corner. He asked her to be seated and without asking her any questions, he handed her a glass and instructed her to drink.

********

Ben got out and saw the tire that had hit the chuckhole. Cursing, he got the tire iron from under the driver’s seat and started to change the tire.

Half an hour later, Al appeared in the backseat of Ben’s car just as he was getting back in and putting the tire iron back under the seat.

“Well, it’s about damn time!” Al groused. “Zero me in on Susan!”

He found himself on the front step of the house, where Susan was walking out, weakly holding onto the railing of the porch steps with her left hand and clutching a small white paper bag in her right. In the exterior light, her face looked pale and wan. She stumbled slightly on the last step but remained upright.

“Oh, _no_!” Al cried in despair. “Dammit!”

********

“Sam, we’re too late. She’s already done it.”

The Leaper slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “Damn.”

“She still dies, Sam,” Al said, his eyes on his handlink. “We have to intercept them and get her to a hospital. The nearest one is fifteen miles north of here off I-69. Pull over here in this driveway and we’ll wait for ‘em to come back this way, then we’ll head ‘em off. They should arrive in...” He tapped away at the device. “Seventeen point six minutes.”

********

“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Susan closed the car door. “No.”

He eyed her warily. “So is it.... out then?”

She took a deep breath and replied grimly, “No. Not yet.”

This took Ben aback slightly. He really didn’t know how this worked, but he’d assumed it was ... removed. He pointed at the white paper bag on her lap. "That's that?"

"Just some medicine."

"Ah," he said knowingly. "To finish the job." He pulled the car back onto the dirt road and headed toward I-69.

Sam and Al were waiting for them at the edge of a long driveway with their headlights off. The road was illuminated by a pair of bright lamps, one on either side of the driveway at the road. At last their patience was rewarded. Ben’s distinctive rusty powder blue ’67 Chevy approached.

“That’s them,” Al confirmed. “Let’s go.”

Sam turned on his headlights and pulled out ahead of Ben, intending to force him to stop. Unfortunately, Ben’s Chevy was speedier and more maneuverable than Tom’s old clunker. Ben was able to pull off onto the gravel shoulder and swing back onto the road, knocking Susan hard against the window in the process.

“Asshole!” Ben yelled. “Learn to drive!”

Sam swung the car around and followed. He quickly fell behind Ben’s car and lost them. Al was attempting to locate them when they both heard the unmistakable sound of a police siren.

“Looks like they’ve got speed traps up here, too, Sam,” Al said wryly.

“Can I see your license and registration?” the officer asked when he got to Sam’s car.

“Officer,” Sam began urgently as he handed over the proper documents, “there’s a young girl a couple miles ahead who needs immediate medical attention. I was trying to catch up to her.”

“Uh-huh,” the officer said, side-eyeing Sam. He took the documents and returned to his car.

“Al, he doesn’t believe me,” Sam said hopelessly.

“Tell him to keep your license and registration and follow you,” Al suggested.

“Do you think that’ll work?”

Al shrugged.

The officer was watching Sam seemingly talking to himself and shook his head. _I get all the kooks._ He went back and handed Sam his license, registration, and a big, fat ticket Tom probably couldn’t afford. “Here ya are. Go forth and speed no more.”

“Uh, excuse me, sir? That girl up ahead just had an abortion from an unlicensed physician living at 8603 Vandelay Avenue in Huntington. If she doesn’t get to a hospital soon, she’s gonna die.”

The officer grimaced and shook his head. “I’ve heard some wild ones in my time, but this is the definitely most specific.” He tossed the paperwork at Sam and went back to his car.

“What a nozzle!” Al growled.

“Terrific. He’s following me now. He must think I’m some kinda nut.”

“This might work out OK, Sam. They’re stopped under a bridge on a closed road about eight and a half miles up ahead. I wonder why they’re stopped...? Oh, God, do you think...?” He couldn’t even say it. The timing was right. If the practitioner had given her poison to end her pregnancy, it might be taking effect right now.

“Go to her,” Sam commanded.

“I hate to say this, Sam, but... drive the limit. At least ‘til you get closer to the bridge.”


	10. Guardian Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Susan's life in danger, it's up to Al to come to her aid.

“Ya know what, Susan?”

No response.

“I said, _ya know what, Susan_?” Ben repeated sarcastically loudly.

“What.” No emotion.

“I’m a little surprised that you walked out of that place on your own feet so soon after walkin’ in.” He spoke in an overly casual tone. “I was expecting this to be more of a ... medical-type procedure, ya know? Like, surgically removing the little problem you got yourself into?”

Susan had no choice but to sit there and listen, not knowing exactly where he was going with this, but knowing it was no place good. Her left arm was crossed over her belly and she clutched her left shoulder with her right hand. She was trying to ward off the evil that sat next to her, taunting her with a deceptive lightness.

“So I was thinkin’ that maybe.... you didn’t do the thing after all.”

“Ben. The doctor—or whatever he is—gave me poison to drink. It’s supposed to make me have the baby early. It doesn’t happen instantly. It takes some time.”

“How _much_ time, though, is what I’m curious about.”

She sighed loudly. “I don’t know. It...varies. Could be hours, could be days.”

“Ah,” he said. “Gotcha. So you’ve got a little time then.”

She shook her head in confused irritation. “I _guess...?_ ”

“Sweet,” he said, abruptly pulling the car off the road by a bridge. “Because _I_ guess it’ll be a little while before you’ll wanna go at it again, so....”

“Go at what ag—? Ben, what are you doing?” Susan braced herself against the door and her side of the bench seat. As soon as he stopped the car, she would make her escape. She didn’t know how quickly she could run in her condition, but she knew that she would _have_ to run or she would die.

Before the car had come to a stop, Ben’s fist was already clutching her hair. He yanked her toward him and she landed face-first in his lap. He stopped the car and threw it into park with his left hand. His right hand was holding her face down on him. Her left arm was pinned beneath her but she reached her right hand above her head, finding his face and scratching with all her strength. She thought she felt his eyeball.

Ben screamed obscenities as he yanked her off him by her hair. Her face struck the dashboard and she felt a blinding pain and warm blood pouring out of her nose. She struggled to right herself and reach for the door again, this time with her back turned to him. He pulled her back by the shoulders as she bellowed in guttural terror.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Al cried as he appeared in the backseat. Without pausing to think, he reached across the back of the seat to grab Ben’s fist, which was drawn back to punch Susan, but of course Al’s hand went right through it.

Torn between his instinct to watch over Susan and the need to warn Sam, he hesitated briefly, then commanded, “Gooshie, take me back to Sam for just, like, five seconds, then back here!”

In those five seconds, he told Sam to step the hell on it, cops be damned, and told him where they were parked.

When Al returned, he hadn’t missed much. Susan was putting up a good fight. Ben had a new scratch on his face and his right eye was already swelling shut from the first gouge. He had red marks on his neck that must have come from Susan’s small hands.

Those hands, trembling slightly, reached again for the door handle as Ben was preoccupied with his belt. She had almost made it this time, but he lunged forward and locked the door. With his face unprotected, she gave him a decent sock in the nose with the heel of her palm. Blood poured out onto her and she grimaced.

Al suddenly remembered something. “Under the seat! Susan, under the seat!” He wasn’t getting through. He remembered the last time she had heard him and forced himself to speak slowly, quietly, and soothingly. “The _seeeat._ There’s a _tiiiire ironnnn..._ Under the _seeeeeat._ ” He sounded like the ghost of Jacob Marley. In his regular voice, he added, “Hang in there, honey, Sam’s comin’!”

As Ben wiped the blood from his nose with one hand and unbuttoned his button fly with the other, Susan had a flash of memory. The chuck hole they’d hit on their way to the Vandelay Avenue. The flat tire. She watched Ben swipe at his nose and noticed a black smear on his hand. Her nose still held the rubbery scent of his fist when it struck it. Her mind recalled the image of Ben getting back into his Impala as she shakily exited the house. Did he have something in his hand? Something shiny?

Even in her panic and pain, she mentally clapped herself on the back for her detective skills. That was some real Sherlock Holmes stuff right there.

In truth, she hadn’t seen anything in his hand at the time, but her memory seemed to be telling her otherwise. She shifted herself so she was kneeling on the bench seat facing Ben. Taken slightly by surprise at her suddenly submissive stance, Ben grinned. She grinned back, her teeth caked in blood. Ben’s jeans were down, and Susan carefully lowered herself onto him. He put his head back and closed his eyes.

“Oh, nice _shot!_ ” Al cheered.

Ben had not seen that tire iron coming.

********

 _Yeah, that guy was definitely hiding something,_ Officer Cooper thought again. He’d read enough detective novels to know how to read body language. Mr. Tom Hunter was pretty squirrely. Talking to himself, fumbling for his ID, making up crazily specific excuses. Something was up.

He called for backup and as luck would have it, Sergeant Addison was parked behind a billboard just a mile or so past the bridge down the road. _I guess it’s not luck_ , Cooper thought. _He’s always parked behind that billboard. Speeders..... Like shootin’ ducks in a barrel._

By the time Sam had reached the bridge, Addison’s car had just pulled onto the shoulder ahead of him and Cooper had pulled up behind, skidding to a stop in the loose gravel. Without stopping to explain himself, Sam ran from the car and raced for Ben’s Impala. At the same instant Sam’s door had opened, so had Susan’s.

“Freeze! Police! Put your hands up!” Addison and Cooper were crouched beside their respective car doors, windows down, guns drawn.

 _What is this, “Starsky and Hutch?”_ Sam wondered.

“Hands _up!_ ”

Sam complied. Susan, bloodied and staggering, stopped in her tracks. She looked up and saw Sam standing a few yards from her. She looked back and forth from one police officer to another. Slowly and deliberately, although unsure exactly why she was required to do this, she raised her hands in the air.

The blood had left her head when she had bolted from the car, and raising her arms up like that threw off her equilibrium. Sam was right there to catch her when she collapsed.

“Oh, boy,” she murmured.

“The man you want is in the car!” Sam informed the officers. “Be careful.”

“No need. I knocked him out,” Susan said weakly from Sam’s arms. “With a tire iron.”

Sam helped her sit down on a fallen tree by the bridge.

“You shoulda seen her, Sam, she was _great_!” Al enthused proudly, pumping his fists in front of him. “She really gave him what for!”

Officers Addison and Cooper were leading the dazed and bleeding Ben from the Chevy. “Sorry I didn’t believe you, son,” Cooper told Sam as they passed. “I get crap every day from punks who think they own the road.”

“I understand,” Sam said generously.

"Uh, sir?" Susan said to Officer Cooper, who was carrying a white paper bag in one hand. "That's my medicine. Could I have it, please?"

Cooper handed it to her. She opened it to check that the medicine she needed was still there.

Sam eyed the bag suspiciously. “Are you all right, Susan?”

“I think so, Sam,” she said. “I’m sorry, I mean Tom. Gosh, I keep doing that.”

Sam smiled. “That’s okay.” Little did she realize how okay it was.

“How the heck did you find me out here in the middle of nowhere?” she asked.

“Well, I—uh...” He tried to think of an explanation but stopped. “I guess I just ... knew.”

She looked at him and wondered if it was normal to have this close a bond with somebody she wasn’t even related to. They’d always had a tendency to say the same thing simultaneously or to have similar dreams on the same night or to burst into the same song at the same time. But this was beyond a mere kindred spirit thing. Rather than attempt to make sense of it or question the unlikeliness of it, the two of them opted to smile mystically at one another.

After a moment, Susan said, “Well, I guess my parents will believe me now.”

Sam smiled gently and with some satisfaction. “I guess so.”

“Does my nose look broken to you?”

“No,” Sam said after a brief physical examination. “Just sore.”

“It sure is.” She turned away, suddenly bashful. “I guess I look pretty bad, huh?”

“Not so bad...”

She looked at him questioningly, trying to decide what she had heard in his voice. She decided it was just tact. “I was bound and determined not to let Ben do that to me again. And if he did, I at least wanted some bruises to prove it, ya know? I might have overdone it a little...”

Sam smiled and brushed the hair from her face.

“It’s a good thing you came along when you did,” she continued, babbling a little. “I don’t know how I would have gotten to a phone.” She stopped and added thoughtfully, “I also don’t know how I happened to think about the tire iron under the seat. I knew he’d changed the tire, but I always thought people kept their tire irons in the trunk.”

Al looked at Sam, smiled, and pointed to himself, bouncing happily on his heels. Sam grinned.

“An ambulance is on the way,” Cooper said from his car, hoping to somehow redeem himself in this whole situation. “I’ll meet her at the hospital to take her statement.”

“Thanks,” Sam said gratefully.

Cooper turned toward his car. “Fish!” he exclaimed.

“I’m sorry?” Sam asked.

“Shooting _fish_ in a barrel,” Cooper muttered as he got into his car. Sam frowned, perplexed, then turned back to Susan.

“Really, Tom, I’m OK,” she was saying. “I don’t need an ambulance. I just need to get cleaned up. Oh, and I need the pils I left in the car.”

“Susan,” Sam said gently. The poor girl had no idea what she was in for. “We have to get you to a hospital as soon as possible. The drug that man gave you can make you very sick. You could get an infection.... you could hemorrhage—”

“I didn’t take it,” she interrupted quickly.

“You could even— what?”

She smiled and repeated herself slowly. “I. Didn’t. Take it.”

He looked at her and then smiled. They both laughed in relief. "So you're still....?" She nodded. "Then what's in the bag?" he asked.

"Bendictin. For morning sickness."

"Oh, no, you can't take that," Sam said. "It causes birth defects."

"Ugh, I knew I couldn't trust that guy!" Susan groaned. She put her hand to her belly in apology for almost harming her little one.

"So what changed your mind?" Sam asked, noticing her unconscious gesture of protectiveness.

“It almost didn't,” she admitted. “Ben stole two hundred dollars from his father. He didn’t want to raise a baby, but he didn’t want to see someone else raise it, either. I kind of feel the same way, honestly. But when I got to that place, I realized... he’s doing it to me again. Trying to control me. Trying to take ownership of _my_ body. Like what I wanted didn’t matter. And, you know, _nobody_ controls me.”

“No, they don’t,” Sam agreed.

“And besides,” she added. “There’s no _way_ that quack was a licensed physician.”

Sam realized he hadn’t given Susan enough credit. She was not as innocent and naïve as he’d believed. She didn’t just have book smarts, she had common sense. She was savvy. She was strong willed enough to make her own informed decisions about her body and her future. Even though she was conservative and had strong moral convictions, she was still a liberated woman in her own way.

And she was brave as hell.

The ambulance pulled up and Sam said, “You’d better go anyway. Just in case. You’re pretty banged up. Make sure that baby’s OK.”

Susan put a hand on her belly and smiled. “I think this one’s pretty strong.”

Sam smiled with tenderness and love. “Like his mama.”

She returned his smile and he gave her a long, warm hug, wishing he’d had more time for a proper goodbye, wishing he could tell her how special she was to him. He didn’t want to ever let her go, but he knew he had to.

He broke off the embrace and watched the paramedics help her into the ambulance as he waited to leap.

She waved at him as they closed the doors, and he waved back, waiting to leap.

He took a step back as the ambulance pulled away and braced himself to leap.

“Al, when am I gonna _leap_?”

“Uh... well, Sam,” Al muttered, “Ziggy says there’s a ninety-seven percent chance what you were _really_ here for was to help her pass her scholarship exam so she could go to college— _not_ to prevent her from having an abortion.”

“You mean she was supposed to _have_ it?”

“Uh, no, Sam...” he began reluctantly. “See, the police reports were lost in a...”

“Fire?” Sam asked witheringly.

Al opened his mouth, then closed it. He didn’t think Sam needed to look at him like that. “Flood. And the newspaper report, which is what Ziggy was going by, didn’t _specify_ whether she died of a botched abortion or not. It just said she bled to death. And, uh, if I hadn’t helped her find that tire iron.... well, she wasn’t doing very well against Ben in there.”

“So she was never gonna have an abortion,” Sam said.

“Ah. No.” Al chuckled sheepishly. “Heh heh. In fact, Ziggy sort of didn’t read the whole report. It, uh, mentioned the toxicology report came back negative. No alcohol or, uh, drugs of any kind in her system.”

“Way to go, Ziggy,” Sam said, addressing the link device in Al’s hand.

“Well, don’t complain, Sam. We still had to get here in time to save her. It’s just that... it wasn’t you who saved the day this time. It was _me_.”

Nodding with gratitude, Sam allowed his best friend this moment of triumph. Then he asked, “What about her baby?”

“Well,” Al said, looking at the readout, “she has the baby and stays at home with her parents to raise it. The baby is a boy and she—” He chuckled. “She names it Thomas Albert Samuel Blake. You only got third billing, Sam. He grows up to be a neurosurgeon.”

“But I wasn’t able to help her pass the exam like I was supposed to. Ben prevented her from finishing it. Now what?” A thought crossed his mind. “Am I stuck here? Since I didn’t do what I was supposed to do, does that mean... I’ll never leap?”

Al checked hurriedly. “Uh...well, _now_ Ziggy says there’s a ninety- _four_ percent chance you still need to do that, too, in which case, she _will_ give her baby up for adoption.”

Sam was exasperated. “Ziggy doesn’t want much, does she? How am I supposed to help Susan pass an exam she didn’t even finish?” But he knew there was a good chance it was possible, otherwise she wouldn’t have offered it as an option, let alone with such a high probability.

Although Ziggy _had_ been known to make mistakes before.


	11. The Butterfly Effect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Susan wax a little philosophical about fate and destiny.

Tom remained in the physics classroom long after Dr. Bradley had left. He had explained the events of the previous two days—Ben’s kidnapping and attacking Susan before she could finish her scholarship exam, the attack in the car the next evening. He explained that Ben was the father of Susan’s child, not him. That his relationship with Susan was completely proper and appropriate.

Dr. Bradley was relieved to hear this, of course, but it would be hard to convince the school board, which would ultimately decide who would take over Dr. Bradley’s physics classes in the fall when he was promoted to principal. In the back of his mind, Sam wondered if this would drag out the length of his leap. The school board could wait until late in the last minute to make their decision. Sam might have to prepare for a long summer in Tom’s life.

Would that be so bad, he wondered? If he could spend those three months with Susan, it might not be so intolerable.

Of course, he had also convinced Dr. Bradley to allow Susan to make up the second half of the scholarship exam. The results hadn’t been sent to the Phoenix Institute yet, and Dr. Bradley had made a case for a special medical dispensation for Susan. He hadn’t had to stretch the truth _that_ much, and he was happy to do it for Susan.

A lot depended on how Susan did on the exam this afternoon. The results could tip the scales of fate in several vastly different directions. According to Ziggy, if she earned a scholarship, she had decided she would move to Arizona this summer and get a jump start on her classes before her baby was born. After the baby was put into foster care until its adoption, she would continue her education, graduate with honors, and move to Chicago to work at a prestigious accelerator laboratory where she would garner awards and accolades for her achievements. Tom would be hired to take over Dr. Bradley’s classes and their paths would never again cross.

If she didn’t get a scholarship, she would stay in Indiana and raise her baby under her parents’ roof as a single mother. The stigma of their relationship would stain the school board’s impression of Tom, and he would be forced to move away from Oakdale to take a teaching job in nearby Fort Wayne. Again, their separation would remain permanent.

However, Ziggy theorized that if Susan received a _partial_ scholarship, one of two things might happen: she would take classes in Arizona and work part time to supplement her education. She would meet a childless couple at her job, which would result in an open adoption, with her remaining in contact with her child for the rest of her life. Or she might take out a student loan in order to take a full course load and the stress would cause her to drop out of school before she’d finished.

One wrong answer on her test could be the difference between happiness and disappointment, between a life with her child or without, between a brilliant career and domestic hardship. It was something Sam was living every day of his life now, as a leaper. The tiniest incident could snowball into the most enormous and unforeseen consequences. Edward Lorenz, the mathematician and meteorologist, had called this the butterfly effect. 

The one constant, Sam noticed but did not say aloud, was that in no possible outcome did Susan and Tom remain in contact.

To Sam, that seemed unconscionable. He knew how close he felt to Susan—and that was nothing compared to how Tom must feel. If he was only experiencing Tom’s residual emotions for her, what Tom felt must be overwhelming. And he could see in Susan’s eyes that she felt the same for him—for Tom.

It was that gut thing again.

********

Susan thought of all the time she had Tom had spent together after Patrick’s death. Even while her brother had been alive, she had felt drawn to Tom. He’d always ignored her, of course. But when his parents—and Patrick—had died and he came to live with her family, they became as close as she had always hoped they would. The guilt she felt—that if her brother and Tom’s parents hadn’t died, she wouldn’t get to enjoy this relationship with him—was overwhelming. If they hadn’t been taken, would she have any friends at all? Would she still be a shy, lonely loser? Would she have had the courage to see herself as worthy of anyone’s attention?

Would she have the strength to take the second half of this scholarship exam right now?

Would she even be alive?

Perhaps God had put Tom Hunter on earth to save her life. If so, then God also killed her brother and Tom’s parents in order to bring them this close.

God certainly did work in mysterious ways. But she was beginning to think that He also had a purpose to everything He did and that He did things in His own time. Mistakes, tragedies, disasters—sometimes it took a while, but they all had beautiful results, if you knew where to look. Something good had come out of every bad thing that ever happened. And that made perfect sense when you considered that He even let His own son die in an especially brutal and tragic way. God knew that something really, really wonderful would come from it. So He made it happen.

Thank God for religion. It certainly made the awful things in life easier to take.

She picked up her pencil. She had stalled long enough. She answered the first test question. It was an easy one.


	12. Commencement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Susan come to terms with their relationship, her fate is revealed, and Sam leaps.

“I look upon this day with a mixture of wistfulness, joy, and unmitigated terror,” the Oakdale Class of 1972 valedictorian was saying as he stood at the podium of the high school gym. “It signifies the end of an era and the beginning of new adventures. As we look back at the past four years, we know we’ll hold these memories with us throughout our lifetimes. The proms. The school plays. The tailgate parties. The basketball games. The scratchy, sweaty band uniforms.” He paused for the laugh, then pointed at his best friend Kevin, the senior class drum major. “You know what I’m talkin’ about....”

Susan smiled a little sadly. She didn’t share in any of the memories her classmate was referring to. For her, there had been no parties, no dances, no drama club.

Just loneliness, studying, and getting pregnant. That was pretty much how she’d spent her high school career.  She wasn’t having a graduation party like the other kids, and she hadn’t been invited to anybody else’s.

Instead, she spent the evening at Tom’s, eating pizza and watching a “Brady Bunch” rerun on TV. The episode centered around Marcia playing Juliet in the school production of _Romeo and Juliet_. At first she’s uncertain of her abilities but her ego gets the better of her and her diva-like attitude gets her kicked out of the show.

“Do you think if I ever got the lead in a play I’d turn into a raging egomaniac?” Susan asked sweetly, nibbling on a crust.

Sam flashed her a smile/frown and looked down at her disbelieving. “ _You_? I can’t even imagine y—”

“Can’t imagine what?” Susan said, amused, sitting up straight and regarding him.

“I said I can’t even imagine,” Sam said innocently.

“It sounded like you weren’t quite finished with your sentence,” she teased. “ ‘I can’t even imagine...you having the courage to try out for a play at all’?”

Sam sighed and leaned back on the couch, turning his attention back to the TV. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was gonna say,” he admitted contritely.

“It’s OK. I get it. But would it surprise you to know I spent _weeks_ practicing a solo to audition for our production of _Carousel_ this spring?”

He turned his full attention right back to her. “ _Whaat?_ ”

She laughed and nodded, chewing a pepperoni. “Yep. It’s true! I _desperately_ wanted to play Julie Jordan. I really _get_ that character. And poor Bonnie Jamison. Prettiest girl in school, but she has _not_ had the life experience necessarily to delve into that role.”

Sam chuckled as he thought about Susan and the lead character in _Carousel._ He was actually surprised he remembered so much about it. Julie Jordan was a simple, hard-working mill worker who quits her job to spend an evening with the town bad boy, Billy Bigelow. They get married, he’s abusive, and he ends up dying during a robbery gone wrong. He and Julie love each other but they don’t have it in them to admit it to each other.

“Let’s hear it,” Sam requested with a gentle smile.

“Hear what?” Susan asked.

“Your audition piece. The song you sang at auditions.”

“Ohhh, no,” she laughed, shaking her head. “I never actually made it to the auditions. I chickened out.”

“What? Oh, no!” Sam laughed and put his hand on her shoulder, giving it a little affectionate shove. He realized what he was doing and removed his hand quickly.

“Oh, yes,” Susan said, a little taken aback by the physical contact that ended much too quickly. “It would have been a disaster.”

“I wanna hear it,” he said sincerely. Then he closed his eyes. “I won’t look at you.”

She sighed. She had really worked hard on that song and had even moved herself to tears in her bedroom as she rehearsed. The show’s signature love song, “If I Loved You” said everything she knew she would feel if she ever fell in love. It was really an anti-love song, two people singing about what they _would_ say to one another if they weren’t so “afraid and shy.” In fact, in the show, Julie only ever says “I love you” to Billy after he dies, because she’d been afraid he’d laugh at her.                                                                                                                                                         

Thinking about the drama of the scene, and her nerve endings still tingling from Tom’s recent hand on her shoulder, Susan felt encouraged and began to sing.

Her high note at the end made them both wince.

“Oh, my gosh, that was so bad, right?” she laughed, red-faced but surprisingly not embarrassed.

“Uh...not _so_ bad,” Sam said diplomatically.

“Don’t lie!” she said with a grin and, feeling emboldened by his ice-breaking shoulder contact, punched him playfully on the arm, unwittingly leaving a small bruise. “I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. I’m so glad I stayed home that day! That would have been humiliating.”

She took another slice of pizza, hunkered back on the couch, and said, along with Jan and Peter, “Hark! Who goes there?”

Sam smiled and looked down at her again. Longing to tell her how he felt, but afraid and shy.

********

Two Saturdays later, Sam and Susan drove to Oakdale Community College to pick up the results of her exam. They stopped outside the front of the administrative building. Susan took a deep breath. “I don’t think I wanna go in there.”

“I’ll be right there with you.”

“No,” she said decidedly. “I think I’d rather do this alone. I’ll be much less likely to break down sobbing if I’m by myself.”

Sam gave her hand a squeeze for luck. She smiled bravely and went up the steps. Sam walked slowly to the bench where he’d spotted Al sitting. Sam had insisted Al take a week off, sensing he was in a holding pattern until the exam results were in. Dr. Beeks had looked in on Tom in the Waiting Room while Al was off.

“How was your vacation?” Sam asked his friend.

“It was _great_!” Al said, gesticulating with his cigar. “Tina and I spent the entire time seeing the sights.”

“Did you take any pictures?”

“Yeah, we took _lots_ of pictures.”

“Did you bring them with you?” Sam hadn’t had a scenic vacation in...well, he literally couldn’t remember.

“Uh, no, Sam,” Al said. “These aren’t the kind of pictures you... show your friends.”

“Where did you _go?_ ”

“Go?”

“Yeah, where did you spend your vacation?”

“Ohh!” Al chuckled lasciviously. “We didn’t _go_ anywhere. We stayed at Tina’s place, seeing....”

“...Each other’s sights,” Sam finished with him, rolling his eyes. “Al, you’re so predictable.” Sam sat down beside him, suddenly quiet. “She doesn’t get the scholarship, does she? When she finished the exam, she was in tears. She fails, she doesn’t go to college, she raises her baby on her own, and is miserable for the rest of her life.”

Al was quietly stern. “Don’t be so optimistic, Sam,” he said sarcastically. “Have a little faith in her.” He read from the handlink. “No, she gets a scholarship, all right. Full ride. But she graduates in only two years and uses the rest of the scholarship money getting her doctorate at MIT.” He looked at his buddy fondly. “Sound familiar, Sam?”

“What about her baby?”

“Well, there’s no record of her having a baby.”

“No _record?_ So she does have the abortion after all...” He realized this was her choice, but he couldn’t help feeling sad for the little boy who wouldn’t grow up to be a neurosurgeon.

“No, no, no, Sam,” Al said. “Back in the seventies when women gave up their babies for adoption, they sometimes did it under an assumed name to protect their anonymity.”

Now Sam couldn’t help feeling a little sad that Susan would never see her little boy grow up to be a neurosurgeon. “Well, as long as she’s happy. But why am I still here? Ben doesn’t get out of jail and come after her, does he?”

“I don’t think so,” Al said, typing furiously to get the answers to his friend’s questions. “Says here he stays in jail for... four years, and in... 1975, he finds religion. When he gets out, he moves to Tennessee and becomes a monk.” He gave the handlink a disbelieving look as though it could see him. “That can’t be right....”

“What about Kaitlyn?” Sam asks, suddenly remembering Susan’s older sister. “Do the Blakes contact her and reconcile after what happened to Susan?”

Al checked, then sighed. “Well, Sam, we can’t win ‘em all.”

Sam had that I-Am-the-Hero-I-Can-Conquer-Any-Problem-I-Encounter look in his eye and was about to argue that it just wasn’t right, but at that moment, Susan came running ecstatically out of the administrative building. She stopped at the top of the steps and shrieked, “ _Sam!_ I mean, _Tom!_ I got it! _I got it!”_ She dashed down the stairs and Sam met her at the bottom. She threw her arms around his neck. “I can’t believe it! I got a full four-year scholarship! This is incredible. Look at this!” She thrust the letter into his hands. “Oh, my gosh!” She paused to catch her breath, her hand over her stomach.

Sam read the letter and then looked at her with pride and affection. “I knew you could do it.”

“Oh, ya didn’t either!” she said jovially, punching him on the arm and taking the letter back. “You were just as scared as I was. Admit it!”

Sam absently rubbed his left arm. “That was just because...”

“Yeah, I know,” she said quietly, then instantly cheered back up again. “Thank you so much, Tom. I owe it all to you. I love you!” Impulsively, she threw her arms around him again.

Al, who had been consulting Ziggy through the handlink, verifying that this was the end of the leap, suddenly cut in, speaking quickly. “Sam! Ziggy says there’s a 98.7% probability that you’re supposed to marry Susan! She and Tom keep the baby, move to Arizona, Tom gets a teaching job, and Susan goes to college. Then they move to Washington, D.C. and she gets a job working for the government.”

Sam, always suspicious of Ziggy’s last-minute prophecies, warily asked, “Are you sure?”

Susan blushed from her scalp to her toes. She had only meant it figuratively, but his question sounded so sincere, so...hopeful. She knew he had been treating her differently lately, looking at her differently, but she had convinced herself it was only wishful thinking.

But totally intoxicated with the adrenaline and endorphin rush from the letter she clutched in her and her newfound bravery—she had knocked a rapist out with a tire iron _and_ sung a romantic musical theatre ballad out loud in the same month—she chose to answer as confidently as she felt.

“Uh—well—I—uh—you know—I—uh—guess?—I mean...”

Al’s eyes twinkled. He was starting to learn to read things in people’s eyes, too. “She’s sure, Sam.”

The Leaper looked down at the girl, finally allowing himself to express his true feelings for her. They were chaste, but they were sincere. She was only 16, Tom was only 20. Sam wasn’t sure the legal age for marriage in the state of Indiana in 1973, but he doubted what Al was suggesting was legal—at least right now. But 98.7% were pretty good odds and if didn’t say something now and he leaped, what were the chances Tom would propose once Sam was gone?

He felt the hairs of his arms raise.

As he was debating his next move, Susan took his hands in hers. She sensed something was coming. She felt an electricity in the air as though if she didn’t hurry and say what she was about to say in the next few seconds, it would somehow be too late and this moment would disappear in a blinding blue flash.

Sam opened his mouth speak but before he could, Susan said in a rush, “Come with me!”

“What?”

“To Phoenix. Come with me. I can’t raise this baby on my own. You can get a teaching job. The Phoenix Institute has a day care, Dr. Bradley just told me.” She tried to find more words to convince him. She searched his face for signs that this wasn’t a horrible, ridiculous idea.

Al, knowing what reservations Sam might be having about this situation, consulted with Ziggy via the handlink. “A sixteen-year-old with a baby can get married in the state of Indiana if she marries the baby’s daddy. Uh.... or with parental consent.... or if the parents disown her... I think it’s OK, Sam?”

“Susan,” Sam said, dropping to one knee as he continued holding her hands, “I know you’re young. But I think what we have is special. I think we should wait until you’re a little older for this, but...will you consider marrying me?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but no sound came out. He almost hoped she’d say no. With the odds Ziggy had given him, a rejection of his proposal might keep him from leaping any time soon and he could spend a little more time with her. He knew that once he leaped, he would most likely Swiss-cheese her right out of his memory banks. Onward to the next crisis to delve into, the old ones forgotten.

Susan finally found her voice, quiet though it was. “Yes, Sam.” She blushed furiously and slapped her hand over her face with a loud smack. “Oh. My. Gosh. I mean, Tom.” How humiliating. She didn’t even know anyone named Sam. She turned away from him, muttering apologies.

Sam rose, still holding her hands. He put his mouth next to her ear and whispered, “It’s all right,” meaning it with all the sincerity in his heart.

Susan knew somehow that it _was_ all right that she had called him Sam. Repeatedly. Incessantly. She didn’t believe in reincarnation—it was against her religion—but it did feel as though she had known Tom in another lifetime. And for some reason when she looked into his eyes lately, she saw a Sam.

He put his arms around her and held her close. She glanced over his shoulder and thought she saw someone standing there, watching. Someone shorter than Tom, with dark hair and eyes, really garish clothing, and smoking a cigar. She looked again and instead of seeing nothing like she’d expected, she actually saw him _more clearly_. He was holding a small object composed of several colored, blinking boxes, and he was watching with a satisfied smile on his face.

He did a double take as he suddenly realized she was looking _at_ him, actually seeing him. It could hardly be, but she was actually _seeing_ him. She was neither a child, nor an animal, nor mentally ill, nor at death’s door. But she could see him.

 _I’ve always had an overactive imagination,_ she thought _, but this is ridiculous_.

The man made a face—one of shock, dismay, surprise, shock again, and disbelief.  Suddenly, Susan knew his name. He was the imaginary friend Tom had been talking to a few weeks before. Was it possible he as a real person, or perhaps a ghost or even a guardian angel? She cleared her throat and addressed the image, her eyes never leaving him.

“Al?”

Al and Sam, of course, were completely at a loss. Not stopping to think, and looking as if he himself were seeing a ghost, Al imploringly choked out, “Sam?!”

“ _Sam_?” Susan looked at the time traveler. This was a dream, right? This couldn’t be happening.

Sam was startled by this, and, not knowing quite what else to do, he decided to go for a distraction technique. He swept the teenager into his arm and gave her a long (but chaste) kiss. Sam wondered how Tom and Susan were going to resolve this little issue when Tom returned, his own memory Swiss-cheesed, as the blue light and tingling overtook his mind and body, and he leaped.

 

# PART 2

## CHAPTER 13: A Leap Back

 

Tuesday

When the lights had faded and the numbness had worn off, Sam was filled with a sense of sadness and loss.

He was sitting on some sort of hard wooden seat at the end of a row of people. The room was spacious and somewhat dark. It was also naggingly familiar.

He looked toward the front of the room and saw a large crucifix on the wall, statues of saints and angels to the sides, an altar in the center of the floor, and stained glass windows all around. The church was decorated with pine trees covered with strings of white lights, pine wreaths with red velvet bows, and many, many potted poinsettias. He smiled. Christmas was his favorite time of year. But why did his chest feel heavy with sorrow?

Then he looked to the right and saw the white casket in the aisle.

“And now, dear friends,” a familiar voice was saying, “Christine’s son-in-law will say a few words in her memory.”

Sam thanked God/Fate/Time/Whoever for once again dropping him into a no-stress situation at just the right time so that he could conveniently learn about this Christine from her son-in-law. Her death may have something to do with why he had leaped.

Dead silence rang in Sam’s ears. It wasn’t just the aftereffects of the leap. No one was moving. He looked around the church for the man who would walk up to the lectern and present Christine’s eulogy. No one stepped forward. How awkward.

He felt someone squeeze his hand. He looked to his left and saw a beautiful woman with dark hair and big, dark eyes. His heart gave a little flip. He recognized her! He had once been in love with her, a long time ago. When he was just out of adolescence, he thought. His first love? He thought he could remember that they were to be married, but that she had left him at the altar. Was he here to rectify that? Was he being given a second chance?

Wait, was this The Leap Home?

He tried to remember her name. Dena? Dana?

“Go _on_ , Tom!” she urged in an encouraging whisper.

Tom. So he wasn’t home. This wasn’t his life. But he still felt love in his heart for this woman. What was her name?

Then he remembered. “Susan!”

“What?” she asked blankly.

He looked past her and saw an elderly woman, a young man, and a man of retirement age. Frank Blake, he remembered. But...where was Mrs. Blake? What was her first name again?

Christine.

Oh, no! This was Susan’s mom’s funeral. He looked at Susan’s face again, this time with love and understanding in his eyes. Her eyes were red and her face tear-stained.

“Susan, I’m so sorry...” he began sympathetically.

“For what?” she asked, perplexed and a little...impatient?

Sam blinked the confusion out as he reprocessed the situation. The post-leap buzz had finally faded and he was able to think more clearly. This one had taken a while to decompress from, for some reason. Obviously he didn’t need to express his sympathy to Susan; she was his wife, apparently. They were both wearing wedding rings, he noticed.

“I—I don’t know what to say!” he finally admitted. He had only met Christine Blake once, and from what Susan had told him, she was a bit dogmatic in her Catholic faith. He couldn’t put his finger on why. Something about a baby. She didn’t like babies?

“Just read what you _wrote_!” Susan said, this time with a trace of irritation.

He looked down and his hand and saw the damp, crumpled up piece of paper. Tom seemed to have been nervous about delivering the eulogy, too. He was probably not much of a public speaker, so he had written the entire thing out verbatim so all he would have to do was read from the sheet.

He rose, walked up to the lectern, and read the eulogy, which described Christine’s lifelong faith and how it and the love of her family had sustained her through her long, brave fight with cancer.

As he was reading, the elderly woman turned to her granddaughter and whispered loudly, “Susan, who is that man up there?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't really find what the Indiana law was on underage marriage, and the kiss feels slightly problematic, but oh well.


	13. PART 2: A Leap Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's next leap brings him to familiar territory. But things--and people-- aren't quite as he remembered them.

Friends and family gathered for the post-funeral festivities at the Blake house. Susan was helping Veronica, her father’s new live-in housekeeper and Nana’s caregiver, set out food.

“My God, look at all these casseroles,” Susan muttered to Veronica. “I have never seen so many goddamned casseroles in my life.”

“I have,” Veronica said with a smile. “They’re the basic food of death.”

“That bad, huh?”

Veronica chuckled. “No, most of them are probably pretty good.” She took the lid off a crock pot. “Mm. Cheesy potatoes. I just mean that funerals seem to... bring out the casserole in people.”

Veronica was only fifty-five, but she had been to over thirty funerals in her life. The first had been her father’s when she was five. Her mother had made her kiss her daddy’s cold, hard cheek, and it had nearly put her into hysterics. But by the time her mother died just three years later, she had been made to kiss seven additional corpses, and she simply drew the line at her mother’s. She still had the occasional nightmare that her mother’s rotting cadaver had come back for her final death kiss.

“Yeah,” Susan agreed. “Why does everyone think that just because somebody died, we’re all suddenly too grieved to cook? And if they have to give us food, why don’t they just give us, like, pizzas or gift certificates to Red Lobster or something?”

Veronica laughed. “Be nice!”

“Oh, I know, I’m terrible,” Susan said. “I shouldn’t bitch about free food. Everyone’s been really great. And it _would_ be a pain in the ass to have to cook.... Oh, great.” She was looking into a dish.

“What?”

“More beef and noodles. I _hate_ beef and noodles!”

“Well put that one out on the buffet table. Here’s some macaroni and cheese. It’ll reheat well. We’ll put this in the fridge for later.”

“Ugh,” Susan said unenthusiastically. “More pasta. Are there smokies in it, at least?”

Veronica peeked under the aluminum foil. “Can’t tell.”

“Mom always put smokies in her mac and cheese.”

Veronica smiled sadly. “I’ll bet it was amazing.” She held another casserole at arm’s length, squinting her eyes. “What’s this one say?”

Susan peered over her shoulder and squinted at the masking tape on the dish as well. “I think it says ‘Chicken and broccoli.’ Damn, is it my failing eyesight or is it _dark_ in here?”

“It’s not your eyes. It’s the whole house. Your father hates overhead lights.”

“He always did,” Susan said with affection. “He has eyes like a kitty.”

“Yes, he does,” Veronica agreed, grinning. “But they’re such _pretty_ eyes.” Both women smiled at each other.

Susan lifted the clear lid off a white casserole dish, peered cautiously into it, gave it a tentative sniff, and shuddered. She looked up dramatically at Veronica and announced gravely, “Tuna and noodle.”

Together the women proclaimed, “Buffet table.”

********

Sam was mingling with friends and relatives he did not know. Fortunately for him, neither did Tom, nor the young man who silently followed him around as strangers offered their condolences.

“Tom, Tommy,” Mr. Blake said as he approached them with more relatives. “This is Susan’s mother’s oldest sister, Great Aunt Betty. And her husband Gary.”

Sam and Tommy shook hands with them. Great Aunt Betty smiled warmly at them and asked Tommy, “How old are you now?”

“I just turned twenty-one last month.”

“Twenty- _one!_ Oh, my stars! Was I _ever_ twenty-one?” Sam and Tommy chuckled along with her politely.

“Very nice to meet you both,” Sam said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Sam was grateful for his eidetic memory. He and Tommy had already met Susan’s other maternal aunts, Catherine, Doris, Annette, and Theresa, and their respective husbands Don, Jerry, Leroy, and Michael, and her uncles Greg and Mike and their wives Cami and Stephanie. Not to mention Mr. Blake’s siblings and in-laws and all their kids and their spouses. Sam almost needed a genealogical chart to keep them all straight.

“These people are ancient,” Tommy whispered, rubbing his hands together for warmth as they maneuvered to the dining room for more coffee.

Sam wished Susan were with them. He was starting to feel overwhelmed. And, he realized, he missed her. It had only been a few hours since he had leaped away from her, mid-kiss, and he found himself wanting to see her again.

He spotted across the room a woman of about fifty with graying dark hair and blue eyes. She seemed familiar to him and he was just about to ask Mr. Blake to introduce them when she ducked back into the crowd, apparently as shy of meeting strangers as Sam and Tommy were.

He heard the _whoosh_ of the Imaging Chamber door and looked around for Al. The Observer was across the room, an island in the middle of an ocean of relatives. Al jumped a little when he saw all the bodies around him, walking through him from all angles. He hastily made his way through them to the Leaper.

“Geez, Sam, what is this, an old people’s convention?”

“No, it’s a funeral,” Sam whispered.

“What’s that, Dad?” Tommy asked.

“I said, ‘Oh, it’s a funeral,” Sam said, as if in response to the younger man’s comment on the ancientness of the crowd. “You know, lots of old people at a funeral.”

“Good save, Sam,” Al said.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Tommy agreed. “This is a good house for a funeral. It’s so dark in here, it’s like a mausoleum. And cold as one, too.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Uh, you go ahead and get some coffee. I’m gonna use the restroom.”

He and Al slipped away to speak in privacy.

“A funeral?” Al asked as they walked down the hall. “Who died?”

“You mean you don’t know?”

“No,” Al admitted. “Ziggy’s had a hard time getting a lock on you.” He glanced at the handlink. “Oh. Susan’s mother.”

The restroom was occupied, so Sam led Al to the back bedroom where all the coats were laid out in a row on the king-sized bed. Sunlight poured in through the window, making this by far the brightest room in the house. “Why have I leaped into Tom Hunter’s life again? I thought you said he and Susan lived happily ever after.”

“Yeah, well, I know,” Al said. “That’s what Ziggy thought, too. But evidently, something isn’t totally right with them. Or the family. Or—something.”

“Or _something_? Doesn’t Ziggy have any theories?”

“Well—no, not yet, Sam. She’s workin’ on it. It seems to have something to do with Mr. Blake’s mother, Margaret. She’s just not sure what yet. Exactly.”

“Susan’s son is twenty-one, so it must be, what, 1993, ‘94? Just for clarity’s sake, what day is it?”

“Uh, let’s see, it’s... Tuesday, December 28, 1993, and Susan works for the government in DC. Tom teaches phys—”

“Tom?” It was Susan. “Oh, there you are. Aunt Doris said she saw you come in here. Are you looking for someone’s coat?”

“Uh, no, I just...”              

“Needed to catch your breath?” She smiled in understanding. “Welcome to my family. I warned you about them, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you sure did,” Sam said uncertainly with a lopsided grin.

“Well, you were sweet to fly out here. I know funerals aren’t the most fun way to spend the holidays.”

“Why wouldn’t I fly out for your mother’s funeral?” Sam asked in disbelief.

Her smile left her. “Well, you tell me,” she said sardonically. “You’re the one who said you had to get ready for midterms.”

“But this is your mother’s _funeral_...” he said, more to himself than to her. Had Tom grown so callous that he would hesitate to attend his own mother-in-law’s funeral? Was their relationship that strained?

Then he stopped. “I missed my dad’s funeral,” he said under his breath as he remembered this event from his own past.

“I’m sorry, what? I can’t hear you when you mumble,” Susan said in a tone that suggested she’d had this complaint a time or two before.

Sam’s memory was still Swiss-cheesed but he sensed that Tom had most definitely attended his father’s funeral. And his mother’s. And....a close friend’s? Unlike Sam himself, who hadn’t bothered to leave college to spend time grieving with his family.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Midterms mean nothing. This is important.”

“Yeah, well... that’s what _I_ said,” Susan said with some uncertainty. “Are you OK?”

“Sure,” Sam said shakily. Remembering his family was sometimes difficult, especially when the memory was also unpleasant. This leap was dredging up some bad stuff.

“Well, I’m glad you changed your mind about coming here,” Susan said, “because I really need you right now.”

“For what?”

“I’m worried about Nana.”

The Leaper was suddenly all ears. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Well... Dad and Veronica have both mentioned to me that Nana’s been sort of... failing, lately. I mean, she can hardly see, she’s half-deaf, and since she broke her hip, she just doesn’t get around like she used to. She’s... withdrawing into herself. They had to move her bed downstairs because she can’t walk up the steps anymore.”

“Well...Nana’s old,” Sam offered helpfully.

“Yeah, I know she’s old,” Susan said irritably, “but it’s not just that. Dad only hired Veronica a month ago to take care of her, and she’s already up to her old tricks.”

“What tricks?”

“You know... ignoring Veronica, arguing and complaining left and right, making messes everywhere she goes, always trying to sneak outside on her own.”

“Well, Susan, that just sounds like old age to me,” Sam said. “I’m sure she’s not doing it on purpose.”

“Veronica’s the best caregiver they’ve had,” she argued. “She’s like Mary Poppins for the geriatric set. But Dad says it’s gotten worse since she’s been here.”

“The best they’ve had.... how many other caregivers have there been?”

“Cecelia came here in October, and before that it was Elizabeth. She was here in late summer.”

“So they’ve only lasted a short time each. It sounds to me like your dad isn’t giving Nana time with them. It’s gotta be a big adjustment, having a stranger step into your life and trying to get used to a whole new way of doing things.”

Sam knew a little something about that.

“Dad has given her _plenty_ of time to get used to them,” Susan countered loyally. “He didn’t fire the other women. They left. She’s impossible. And Dad can’t retire yet. She can’t be left alone during the day, but she won’t even let Veronica near her.” Susan took a deep breath. “Dad thinks it’s time to put her in St. Therese’s.”

“Bingo!” Al chimed in triumphantly.

“The homeless shelter?” Sam asked incredulously.

“No, that’s St. Mary’s,” Susan said. “St. Theresa’s is the nursing home. God, Tom, what kind of a bastard do you think Dad is, anyway? The homeless shelter...”

“That’s it, Sam!” Al said, punching away at the handlink. “It’s the old Keep-Grandma-Outta-the-Nursing-Home leap. We’ve done this one before. Only that was a Grand _pa,_ and—”

But Sam wasn’t listening to Al. Susan had been pretty rude to him the last few hours, and it was starting to get on his nerves. “Susan, you know, you could be a little nicer to me,” he snapped, then bit his tongue.

Susan felt her blood boil—something that hadn’t happened to her in a while. “ _I_ could be nicer to _you_? Really. I’m the one whose mother just died. You’re the one who wanted to stay home and rewrite the same stupid physics test you give. Every single year.” She added the last part viciously with a bit of a snarl. Were they about to have a fight? After all these years of passive aggressively avoiding their conflict with one another? She felt a thrill of exhilaration at the thought. They were going to hash out their problems and finally move forward with their lives. Painful though that would be, she had known for years it was necessary.

He already regretted snapping at her. But he was filled with an overpowering sense of self-righteousness and something else he had never felt before.

Jealousy.

He didn’t know why or of what he was jealous. But it was there and it was making him say things he knew he shouldn’t. “Look, Susan, I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I know it’s hard. When a parent dies. _Believe_ me, I know.”

She turned away at that, now suddenly the apologetic one. Of course he didn't want to come to the funeral. It brought back memories of his own parents' funeral. “I’m so sorry, Tom,” she said wearily.

“It’s all right.” Sam meant it. But part of him also felt an ugly little twinge of self-satisfaction.

Al was not missing the underlying tension. “Hey, Sam. What’s going on here? Are you and Susan having a lover’s tiff?”

“Tom, there’s something else about Nana,” Susan said, her voice feeling heavy in her own throat. “I’ve been arguing against sending her to St. Theresa’s, too. Up until this morning. In church today, when you went up to give the eulogy?”

“Uh-oh, Sam, here it comes.”

“Nana asked me—”

“Who is that man, Susan?”

All three of them—Susan, Sam, and Al—jumped. Nana had hobbled into the doorway and was looking suspiciously at Sam. Her timing was impeccable.

Susan looked pointedly at Sam and whispered, “ _That_ ,” so Nana couldn’t hear. Loudly, Susan said, “This is Tom, Nana. He’s my husband.”

“That’s not Tom, honey. Stop teasing your Nana.”

“It’s been a long time since you saw him, Nana. He’s changed a lot.”

“He hasn’t changed _that_ much,” Nana answered with spirit.

“It’s been twelve years since you saw him last. He's only been here a day. He’ll start to look familiar again.”

“Twelve _years_?” Sam mouthed to Al.

“I wish you’d stop teasin’,” Nana complained. “It’s gettin’ old! Now, who are you _really_? Are you one of Bill’s boys?”

“No, I’m really Tom. I’ve just gotten...older.”

“And fatter,” Susan added helpfully.

“I’m old, but I’m not stupid,” Nana said with a scowl. “I know you’re not Tom. Your voice is different, too. I’m half-blind, but I’m not deaf. Not completely, anyway.”

“I just have a little cold,” Sam said and forced a small cough.

“You don’t sound anything like Tom,” she protested. “Your voice is much kinder.”

There were only a few types of individuals who could see Sam for who he really was, Al knew. Small children, animals, the dying, and...

“Uh, Sam? Nana must be....” He twirled his index finger next to his temple.

“Did that man just say I was crazy?” Nana asked with indignation, looking at Al.

“Uh—no, Nana. Of course not!” Sam squeaked.

“I’m outta here, Sam. She can see us. Must run in the family!” With the push and punch of a button, Al was gone.

“Where’d he go? I’m not crazy, you know!” she said loudly for the absent man’s benefit. “And I know you’re not Tom. Why are you tryin’ to make me look crazy?”

Mr. Blake, having heard the commotion from the living room, came running into the room. “Mom, it’s OK. Nobody’s trying to make you look crazy.”

“But that man is tryin’ to tell me he’s Tom!” She pointed an accusing finger at Sam.

Mr. Blake looked at Sam. “Well, Mom...that _is_ Tom.”

“But it’s _not_!” she said with tears in her eyes. “I _know_ it’s not. And that _other_ man just said I was crazy,” she added, pointing at thin air.

Mr. Blake looked at his mother, then at Susan. “What other man?” Susan just shook her head with tears in her eyes as well. His blood ran cold. This was just the thing he needed to convince him he’d been right, and he could tell that Susan was on board now, too.

His mother needed to be put in a nursing home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this 7 years before my own mom died... around Christmas time. I am truly the World's Most Useless Psychic.


	14. A String and a Prayer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In order to prove Nana's sanity, Sam breaks a cardinal rule of Project Quantum Leap.

After the last relatives had retrieved their coats and headed out the door, Mr. Blake asked Tommy if was up for a movie. _Grumpy Old Men_ had just opened on Christmas Day and he thought it might cheer him up a little. Walter Matthau had been a favorite of Christine’s and she had expressed interest in seeing the movie if her health had improved. Tommy would rather have seen _The Pelican Brief_ or even _Wayne’s World_ 2 _,_ but he readily agreed. He hadn’t seen his grandfather since he was nine years old and was looking forward to getting to know him a little.

Susan went upstairs to her old bedroom, where she and Tom were staying during the visit, and Sam followed. She changed into her pajamas—an oversized gray t-shirt and loose-fitting black yoga pants—while Sam averted his eyes. Susan rolled hers. Why did Tom never seem to want to see her naked? His own wife?

Sam, for his part, changed into sweatpants and a Spin Doctors concert t-shirt. He felt a flash of déjà vu as he put the shirt on—Tom’s residual memory. He had flown—by himself—to Milwaukee to attend Summerfest. Bon Jovi had been the headliner, but he had gone to see Spin Doctors. Sam couldn’t remember who Spin Doctors were or what they sang, but he sensed that they somehow had special meaning to Tom.

Without speaking a word to him, Susan went downstairs and sat on the couch to watch _It’s a Wonderful Life_ on VHS. Silently, Sam joined her. It felt familiar somehow. Not the movie, but sitting with her on the couch watching TV and eating...pizza?

“I love this movie,” Susan sighed sleepily as Zuzu pointed to the little bell ringing on the Christmas tree. She was slouched back, not quite reclining, with several inches between her and her husband. “It always makes me wonder what the world would be like if I’d never been born. What kind of changes I’ve made in other people’s lives without even knowing it.” She also found herself wondering what he world would be like if she hadn’t kept Tommy, but she wouldn’t have dreamed of saying that out loud.

“I know what you mean,” Sam said with a mild sense of irony.

“Really?” She looked up at him. “I never knew you thought that sort of thing. Isn’t it a little... frivolous?”

“Frivolous?”

“Yeah.” She grinned at him with a familiar twinkle in her eye—something Sam hadn’t seen since this last leap and something he had missed desperately. “Since when do you have a sense of whimsy?”

Sam laughed. “A sense of _whimsy_?”

She sat up straight and regarded him with a surprised smile. Suddenly she grew mock-serious. “When’s the last time you laughed?”

“What?”

“The last time you laughed. You haven’t been this cheery in a long time. Years, even. Mom’s death shouldn’t have this effect on you.”

“Oh, it doesn’t!” Sam said hastily. He groped for words, trying to think of a reason for Tom’s unusual cheerfulness. He couldn’t tell her the truth, which was that being with Susan made him happy. Apparently this was not the case for Tom.

“I know, I’m sorry,” she said, letting him off the spot. “But really, what _is_ it? I want to take it and bottle it and spoonfeed it to you every morning.”

“I guess it’s just... being back here. With you.” He couldn’t help himself; he lovingly brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. The last time he had been with Susan, she had been sixteen years old. He felt Tom’s barely-post-adolescent attraction to her, but as a thirty-something man, he couldn’t do anything with those feelings.

But now...

With his fingers lingering on her face, Susan’s breath caught. “I know what you mean,” she said. “It makes me feel like a kid again. No work, no stress, and aside from Mom and Nana, no worries. Hakuna Matata.”

“Hakuna ma-what-a?”

“Oh, sorry,” she said. “You didn’t see it. It was from _The Lion King_. Hakuna matata. It means ‘no worries.’” She sang a few lines of the song and he smiled.

“You have a beautiful voice,” he said with surprise. The last he remembered, she had sung terribly off-key.

“Thanks,” she said, slightly embarrassed by the compliment. “I go crazy in the lab all by myself, so I’ve been singing a lot to keep myself company. You should dig up your guitar at home and we can go on the road.”

He smiled and hugged her close with one arm. “That sounds great!” He felt more déjà vu. He had sung to himself when working on his projects, too. Mainly show tunes. “The Impossible Dream” was Project Quantum Leap’s unofficial theme song.

Susan chuckled softly and studied his face. “Who or what has gotten into you lately?” She looked into his eyes as though searching for the answer, and her stomach was suddenly full of butterflies. In a rush, almost a flash of blue light, she was back on the campus of Oakdale Community College where she and Tom had first kissed. It had been electrifying. He had proposed to her—well, pre-proposed. It had been a strange, confusing, dizzying day. The pregnancy hormones were in full bloom and she kept calling him by the wrong name. She even remembered hallucinating a strange man, which her doctor blamed on possible preeclampsia and high blood pressure. Those symptoms had only lasted a few weeks, thankfully. Unfortunately, so had her romantic feelings for Tom. But she had already accepted his pre-proposal and he was so eager to help her and her baby, she blamed her lack of feelings on anxiety. She had hoped they would return in time, but unfortunately, they never had.

Until now. Wonder of wonders, she looked into his eyes now and she felt the same way she had almost twenty-two years ago on that college campus. His beautiful, kind, warm eyes that looked back at her with such love and affection.

And then his lips were on hers and she sank back into them.

“Do you wanna go upstairs?” he murmured against her.

“I do,” she breathed, hoping her father and son went to dinner after the movie.

********

The next day, Susan was in a _really_ good mood. Even Tommy noticed.

Mr. Blake went to work, against Susan’s and Veronica’s advice. But he said if he didn’t get back to work, he’d go crazy sitting around and looking at all of Christine’s things, so they stopped arguing. The two women went to the mall to do some post-Christmas shopping, leaving Tommy and Sam alone with Nana.

The men watched an action movie on the VCR. Sam noticed Nana staring into space, not able to see or hear the TV. She looked around and picked up a brochure from the end table. It had an RV on the front with a retired couple smiling happily on a riverbank. Her eyes were unfocused as she thumbed through the pages. She shook her head and set the brochure back on the table. She leaned back and stared into space from her Barca Lounger, drumming her fingers on the arm in boredom.

Eventually Tommy fell asleep on the couch and Sam could no longer take Nana’s nervous drumming. He moved to the chair next to her. “How are you doing, Nana?” he asked loudly into her hearing aid. He heard an echo of feedback buzz from the device as he spoke.

“I’m fine,” she answered, rather wanly.

Sam opened his mouth to say more but realized he didn’t have much else to say. She didn’t seem particularly interested in chatting with him, either, which was probably for the best. Sam didn’t know anything about Tom, what he and Susan did for fun, or even what or where he taught physics, so small talk was going to be extremely difficult.

Finally he decided to go with common references. “It was a nice funeral, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was. Lots of people I haven’t seen in years. And at least one I’ve never seen before,” she added pointedly.

“Well...yeah. Funerals are like that,” he said vaguely.

She turned to face him. “Why don’t you stop playin’ games with me? You’re not Tom, and you’re not Bill’s boy. Who are you, and why does everyone think you’re _Tom_? Are they really all that _blind_?”

Sam’s brow furrowed as he tried to decide how to answer. It seemed pointless to persist in telling her he was Tom when she clearly wasn’t buying it. Her insistence that she was right was only adding to the perception that she was suffering from dementia.

She thought he was playing games and she was refusing to play along. But that was because she didn’t know the rules. With a sidelong glance at the lightly snoring Tommy, Sam said, “Nana, I need you to come with me.” He helped her up and led her to her bedroom at the back of the house farthest away from the living room where Tommy was dozing.

Nana sat down in the chair next to her bed.

“I’m going to tell you who I am,” Sam told her. “But I want you to promise me you’ll keep it a secret, between you and me. You can’t breathe a word of this to _anybody_. Not even Susan.”

“All right.”

He took a deep breath and began. “My name is Dr. Sam Beckett. In...a few years—or maybe sooner—I’m going to finish building a computer that’ll allow me to travel back in time.” He said this more softly than he’d spoken to her before, but she was nodding. He asked, in an even softer voice, “Did you hear me, Mrs. Blake?”

After a moment’s pause, she said, “Oh, I heard you.”       

“The other man you saw and heard is my friend from the future. His name is Al. He’s a hologram who’s programmed to my brain waves. And you and I are the only people who can see or hear him. We’re here to help you—uh, you and your family deal with the death of your daughter-in-law.” He decided not to tell her about the nursing home—not yet. “And as soon as everything is all right here, then we’ll go away and Tom will come back.”

This massive revelation was met with silence from the elderly woman.

“Okay?” Sam asked tentatively.

“I don’t know who you are,” she finally answered, “but you are full of it.”

“Mrs. Blake, my name really is Sam Beckett,” he said, backpedaling a bit from the time-traveling aspect of his being. “And I do have a friend named Al. He’s my best friend and companion. It’s...possible he’ll show up from time to time and that you’ll... see and hear him. But as you’ve already noticed, _nobody else can_. I’m trying to explain why that is. If you keep talking about him, well...they’re going to think you’re losing your mind.”

“ _You’re_ the one who’s lost his mind,” she said heatedly. “Tellin’ me a story like that! What do you take me for, a damned fool?”

“Mrs. Blake, listen to me,” he said gently, kneeling in front of her and taking her hand. “Can you think of any other explanation for why everyone else thinks I’m Tom and nobody can see Al?”

“Yes, I can,” she said, suddenly vulnerable. “They’re tryin’ to make me think I’m crazy so they can lock me up in a nursing home without a fight.”

“That’s not true, Nana.” It wasn’t Sam who spoke. It was Susan.

Sam stood up guiltily and faced her. “Susan—”

“Veronica and I brought you some chicken noodle soup for supper. Why don’t you go ahead and eat?” She helped the family matriarch to her feet and led her to the door. As Nana walked down the hall, Susan slammed the door shut, stalked over to Sam, and waved her hands in the air. “What the holy hell did you think you were doing?”

“How much did you hear?” he asked with a sinking feeling in gut.

“I heard the whole damned thing! You’re from the future, you’re here to help us get over Mom’s death? That’s the stupidest, most _insulting_ story I’ve ever heard in my life! What the hell were you thinking?” In fury, she raised her hand as if to strike him but he caught her wrist in midair.

“She didn’t believe me,” Sam said reassuringly.

She yanked her hand away. “She’s senile, Tom, she’s not stupid!”

“But think about it. Wouldn’t a woman with dementia, who’s ready for a nursing home, buy that story hook, line, and sinker? If she already believes a stranger has taken over Tom’s— _my_ body, and she’s seeing people who aren’t there? Wouldn’t that story make perfect sense to her?”

“Only if she’d completely lost her mind!”

“And so you’re saying... she hasn’t?” His forehead crinkled sympathetically as he led her into this logic trap.

Susan was exasperated and utterly confused. “Tom, what are you trying to prove? That Nana has a perfect grasp on reality because she doesn’t believe in the invasion of the body snatchers? Or that she’s losing her mind because she sees people who don’t exist and thinks you’re not my husband?”

“What I’m trying to say is that both of those things prove that Nana has all her faculties.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Susan, sit down. I have something I think I have to tell you.”

“Yeah, _you’re_ the one we should be putting away.”

“No,” he said firmly, leading her to the chair. Sam paced the floor. “The story I told Nana is the truth. I don’t expect you to believe me right away, but I know you have the capacity to. At least...you used to.”

“What’s that supposed to--?”

“Do you remember that episode of ‘Star Trek’? The one where they go back in time to fix something that went wrong with the past?”

“Yes,” she said carefully. “That was my favorite one.”

“I know. And do you remember once telling me you thought it might one day be possible to travel back in time?”

“Oh, Sam, I was a _kid_ then—”

He stopped pacing and stood before her, a glint in his eye. “You just called me Sam.”

An icy feeling swept over her and she hesitated. “Slip of the tongue. It’s...Tommy’s middle name—”

“It’s his _second_ middle name. What’s his first?”

“Albert. So wh—?”

“What was the name of the invisible man Nana saw?”

She opened her mouth to answer, then stopped. She scoffed, “Al was your imaginary friend. Don’t you remember, we named him after your imaginary friend. We were a coupla goofballs—”

“You used to call me Sam. Right after you told me you were pregnant with Tommy. Remember? You couldn’t explain it then, but you kept calling me Sam.”

“I was going through a very rough time in my life...” she said by way of excuse.

“I know,” he replied softly. “That’s why I was there. That’s what I do. I go back in time, and I ... help people.”

“Please stop. This isn’t funny.” He was starting to scare her. This wasn’t like Tom at all.

“I’m not trying to be funny,” he said. He decided to try a strategy that had once worked before. The exact details eluded him but the vague memory gave him a chill as if someone had walked over his grave. He sat on the edge of the bed next to her chair. “Would Tom joke about this?”

Susan felt a similar chill. It was as if he’d been reading her mind. “Tom hasn’t had a sense of humor in twenty years,” she said distantly, then silently questioned the sanity of her phrasing.

“So you believe me,” he said quietly.

“Am I supposed to?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t had to tell a lot of people.”

“OK, Captain Kirk,” she said, suddenly sarcastic again. “How does it work? Do you have to boomerang around the sun in your starship or do you have a flying Delorean? And how do you look exactly like my husband—who is where now, by the way? Tied up in the backseat?”

“It doesn’t work like that at all. Let me start at the beginning.” He removed the shoelace from his black wingtip. “Your life is a string. This end is your birth, and this end is your death. If you put the ends together, you have a circle. If you bunch the string up in a ball...you can travel from point to point in your life.”

She stared at him. “Well, it’s so obvious now. How could I have doubted you?”

“I’m trying to explain...”

“With a shoelace? I’m a physicist, remember? I don’t suppose you have any, I don’t know, mathematical calculations to prove your little ‘string’ theory?”

“I do, but you wouldn’t understand them,” he said, re-lacing his shoe.

“Try me.”

He looked up and saw something new in her eyes. A flicker of belief—or at least of hope. They were the eyes of the child who still writes letters to Santa Claus even though she doesn’t have a chimney, who puts her tooth under her pillow even after she’s seen her daddy put the quarter there, who wishes on a falling star.

“All right,” he said, rolling up his sleeves. “Gimme some paper and a pen.”

Susan opened her suitcase and pulled out a sketchpad. She flipped through the various sketches she’d drawn of her husband and son—and one of her mother on her death bed, looking beatific—until she reached the first blank page.

“These are really good,” Sam said. She glared at him.        

For the next hour, Sam scribbled ferociously in the sketchpad. He was writing calculations and formulas he’d forgotten he knew. Looking over his shoulder, Susan spoke not a word. At last, Sam’s hand threatened to give out on him. “These are just the most basic, preliminary equations,” he explained. “These form the basis for my neurocomputer.... and these are some of my time travel calculations.”

“Oh, my God,” she breathed, staring at the sloppily scribbled figures on the pages. “This could actually work.”

“It _does_ actually work,” he corrected her quietly. “It has.”

She looked at him again, as if for the first time. “It’s true then? You’re not my husband?” Sam could see in her eyes the skeptical suspicion, the uneasy terror, and the thrill of scientific discovery.

“No,” he said. “I’m not.”

Susan slowly extended a shaky hand to the time traveler. “I don’t believe we’ve met. My name is Susan Blake Hunter.”

He took her hand in his. “And I’m Sam Beckett.”


	15. A Proposal

Wednesday

It took Susan some time for the revelation to sink in. The scientist had endless technical questions that still needed answers. But the human being still needed time to sort out the emotional ones.

“How long have you... been here?”

“Since the funeral yesterday. I leaped in right before I gave the eulogy.”

She nodded somewhat absently. “That makes sense, because that was when Nana asked me who that man was. She was seeing _you._ ”

“That’s right. My body leaps. The physical aura of the person I leap into remains, so people— _most_ people—see and hear the person I leap into, not me.”

She replayed the previous day in her mind from the perspective of the time traveler. “You poor thing. You had to meet all my relatives...”

He smiled. “They seem really nice.”

“Oh, they are,” she said dismissively. “But what about Tom? You said as long as you accomplish what you’re here for, then Tom would come back. Come back from where?”

“Well, from the future. From the lab where the project is underway. And he won’t remember leaping or anything about the lab. He may have some...memory lapses when he comes back, but he should be able to remember the funeral and the wake and... last night.” Even as he said it, he regretting reminding her.

“Oh, my God, last night!” she groaned. She thought she would stroke out right there in her Nana’s bedroom.

“I’m so sorry...”

“You... bastard!” she cried, rising from the chair and taking her turn to pace, her arms folded across her chest. “You realize what you did, right? You took advantage of my ignorance. You slept with me under false pretenses. You realize that’s sexual assault, right?”

“I’m so, so sorry, Susan. But please understand. When I leap, sometimes I have to... do things I wouldn’t normally do, so as to ...appear to be the person... I appear to _be._ ” He was trying to justify what he’d done to himself as much as to her. Had he done this before—slept with a married woman under the guise of being her husband? How could he live with himself, now that he realized what kind of person that made him?

“You’ve made me an adulterer.”

“Susan, please don’t consider it adultery. You thought I was Tom. And for all practical purposes, I _was_ Tom.”

“How can you even say that? You are not Tom. You know you’re not Tom. You’re a stranger who came into my father’s house and... seduced me. Tricked me.”

“I really am sorry,” he insisted. “But like I said, when I leap, I have to do what the person I’ve leaped into would do.”

She couldn’t let him continue to feel justification with what he had done. “Then you don’t know Tom very well.”

“But I do,” he insisted. “At least a little bit. There’s always some residual memory and personality when I leap into somebody. And every time I leap into Tom, I feel such a powerful connection and bond with you that I know he—”

“Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa,” she said, turning to face him and holding her hands up. “Back it up right there, buddy. _Every_ time you leap into Tom? _EVERY_ time you leap into Tom? Just what the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you _stalking_ me?”

“No, of course not.”

“Wait a second,” she said, shaking her head. “You asked me before if I remembered calling you Sam, right after I told you I was pregnant. You said you were there to help me then, too?”

“I was here then,” he admitted. “But that was the only other time.”

“When? For how long?” she demanded, her heart pounding in her head.

“About a month,” he answered. “From the day you told me you were pregnant to the time I pro—I mean, Tom proposed. As soon as ... that happened, I leaped out. And then leaped back in again yesterday.”

Susan inhaled deeply and pursed her lips, letting the breath out slowly and noisily as she clicked her tongue against her teeth. “You’d better brace yourself, then,” she said.

“What do you mean?” he asked again.

“You _bastard_ ,” she repeated in a whisper as she thought back over her entire adult life, tears spilling from her closed eyes and rolling down her cheeks. She couldn’t even finish her thought.

“I don’t understand,” he said gently, standing up and putting his hands on her arms.

She looked up at him, eyebrows angled upward like a Bassett puppy. “I fell in love with _you,_ Sam. Not Tom.”

“ _What_?”

She lost her sentimental demeanor in favor of the irritation that she’d worn comfortably for the past two decades. “I remember now how weird Tom seemed and how quickly he snapped out it. I mean, I’d always had a crush on him, but that’s all it was. I had crushes on everyone. I had a crush on Dr. _Bradley_ , for God’s sake. I never would have done anything about it. But when I looked into your eyes and you told me what a wonderful friend I was.... and I think I said I loved you and you were like, ‘Really?’ like, not shocked or horrified, but kind of... hopeful? And we had so much fun together, and you just _got_ me. And I kept hearing this guy’s voice in my head calling you _Sam_!” Her voice caught at his name and she unexpectedly began to cry. She hadn’t gone through this many emotions since her pregnancy.

Sam longed to hold her and comfort her as much as she longed for him to do so. But they both kept their distance. “Tom wanted to propose to you,” Sam said with conviction. “I could feel it.”

She scoffed. “No. He didn’t. That was all you. He told me on our fifth anniversary that he didn’t know what had made him ask me to marry him. He said he didn’t even remember saying it until he realized he was kissing me. Then he replayed it in his mind and heard himself saying, ‘Will you marry me?’ Then he felt obligated. And after the horrible few weeks I’d had, it just seemed to put everything right that had gone wrong. So he just went with it.” She looked at him. “That was _your_ residual memory _he_ was experiencing. You thought what I needed to make things right was to marry my science tutor!”

“That wasn’t what I thought, actually,” he told her. “It’s what Ziggy thought. She said the odds were over ninety-eight percent that you and Tom were meant to be married.”

“Is that what she said?” she pressed. “Literally? ‘Tom and Susan are meant to be married and live happily ever after’?”

“No, she didn’t mention a happily ever after,” he admitted. He thought back and realized his memory of that day was crystal clear. “In fact, she didn’t mention Tom’s name at all.”

Susan rolled her eyes. “So Ziggy was trying to hook you and me up.”

“Oh, boy,” Sam muttered.

“Some matchmaker, that Ziggy. You should change her name to Yente.” This was the second time Susan had referenced _Fiddler on the Roof,_ and it warmed Sam’s heart in spite of himself.

“Susan, I gotta ask. Do you love Tom?”

She thought back to the past twenty-one years with her husband. He was brainy but unambitious, preferring to teach high school physics in the same way, day in and day out, never growing, never trying anything new, but constantly complaining about it. He was a loving and devoted father to Tommy, but he had always kept him at arm’s length, making him feel like he wasn’t really _his_ , even though he’d adopted him soon after his birth. She and Tom lived their lives more or less independently of one another. They didn’t like the same music or the same movies. He hated musicals and she loved them. They didn’t have the same sense of humor at all. And the last time they’d made love had been....well, the night of Tommy’s Confirmation, so nine years ago? The only thing they really had in common was their love of “Star Trek.” But who _didn’t_ love “Star Trek”?

“No,” she confessed finally. “I don’t think I do.”

Sam’s voice was soft and soothing as though he were trying to avoid spooking her. “You and I are the ones who are supposed to be married. Susan, it’s 1993. Right now, I’m in—well, my younger self is in Albuquerque, building Project Quantum Leap. I’m not sure where, exactly, but I’m in the desert. You can look me up and find me. We could use someone like you to help us. In fact, I’m pretty sure we used some of your articles in our research. But you could—”

“Wait, are you serious?” she interrupted incredulously. He braced himself for a full-scale rejection the likes of which he’d never experienced. Or at least that he couldn’t remember having experienced. “I actually helped you go back in time and throw my own life on its ear?” Her face was a mixture of horror and elated excitement. She was still a scientist, after all.

He grinned wryly. “Funny how it works, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah, hysterical.”

“I’m sorry all this happened. But.... not sorry, too. The Project is designed to make sure the right things happen at the right time. Ziggy’s got my brain cells, so she knows me better than I know myself. I’ve come back to correct the mistake I made twenty-one years ago when I helped you marry the wrong man.”

“I can’t just divorce him, Sam. That’s something our family does not do.”

“Doesn’t the Catholic church have... an escape clause or something?”

She laughed. “Annulment? Yeah, I guess so. And I’m pretty sure a marriage based on a proposal by a time traveler taking over my husband’s body would probably be grounds for one.”

He laughed, too. “After I leap out of here, you and Tom have a lot to discuss. Not... me or the Project, of course, but... your...”

“Horrible sham of a marriage?” she finished helpfully.

They laughed together. He had missed her sense of humor.

“Yeah, that,” he said. “But in the meantime, I’d like to ask you something. This time speaking for myself, from my _own_ heart.” He took her hands in his and got down on one knee. “Susan. Will you search out my past self and convince me to ask you to marry me?”

They laughed themselves to tears for nearly a full minute.

********

Al exited the Waiting Room and made his way toward the Imaging Chamber to check in on his friend. On his way, he asked Ziggy how Sam was doing.

Ziggy answered in her lofty, detached voice, “A better question, Admiral, would be, ‘ _What_ is Dr. Beckett doing?’”

“OK, I’ll bite. _What_ is Sam doing?”

“He is proposing to Susan.”

“What? They’re already married.”

“No, they are not,” she answered quite logically. “Susan is married to Tom Hunter.”

“Yeah, I know that, Ziggy,” Al said irascibly. He hated when she played mind games with him. “Your point being?” He jaw was cocked slightly in a sarcastic angle.

“Dr. Beckett is not proposing as Tom Hunter. He is proposing as Dr. Sam Beckett.”

Al’s jaw slammed shut. He shifted his weight to his other foot. “Ziggy,” he mumbled, his cigar-holding hand absently fumbling with his hair, “could you please repeat that last part? It sorta sounded like you said he was proposing as Dr. Sam Beckett.”

“Is there a problem with my audio output, Admiral?” she asked innocently. “Do I need to speak more clearly?”

“Ziggy, why would Sam be proposing to Susan?” he yelled. “He would have to have told her who he really was. _He_ wouldn’t have told her who he really was!”

“Yes, Admiral,” she corrected quietly. “He would. And he has.”

“Oh, my _God_!” Al bolted for the Imaging Chamber door.

********

“So now that you’ve, you know, proposed to me... for real, this time... are you gonna.... leap again?” Susan wanted to know.

“Well, first of all, you haven’t said yes yet,” Sam said with mock seriousness. “And second, I don’t think that’s the only thing I’m here to do.”

“You told Nana it’s to help us get over Mom’s death. Is that what Ziggy said?”

“Well, no. It’s actually about—”

“Sam, what the hell is going on here?” Al growled through gritted teeth as he entered the Imaging Chamber.

“Al!” Sam gasped, startled.

“Al? Is he here?” Susan asked, looking around, wondering if she could see him like Nana could. Like she herself once could when she was sixteen.

“She _knows_ about me, Sam?” he barked. “What were you _thinking_?”

“Yes, he’s here,” Sam said mildly. He turned to Al and said, “It was necessary.”

“What necessary? What could _possibly_ necessitate blowing your cover like this? Nondisclosure was one of your number one rules!” That included sharing information with Sam about past leaps, so he left out the fact that this was not the first time Sam had disclosed the truth in the name of love.

“Al’s a little upset that I’ve told you the truth,” Sam explained patiently.

Al was actually affronted, and he waved his arms in the air to demonstrate this fact. “Upset doesn’t _begin_ to describe—”

“I don’t blame him,” Susan said. She addressed thin air, raising her voice slightly. “I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the news, either, Al. If that makes you feel any better.”

“No, Susan, as a matter of fact it _doesn’t,_ ” Al said conversationally, then stopped. “What am I doing, she can’t hear me. Wait, can you?”

They both looked at Susan. Susan did a double take at Sam. “What?”

“You can’t hear him, can you?”

She cocked an ear. Al gave her a tentative, “Helloooo?”

She shook her head. “No, guess not. But I remember what he sounds like. And what he looks like. Dark hair, colorful clothes, smokes a cigar. Quite handsome.”

“She has a good memory, Sam,” he conceded with a satisfied nod. Sam and Susan shared a secret grin at her subtle compliment, designed to win Al over. “But I gotta talk to you. _Alone. NOW!_ ”

“Susan, maybe you should check on Nana. Al and I have some things to discuss.”

“Sounds good.” She headed for the door then turned back. “Um. Al? Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too, honey,” he answered absently as he fiddled with the handlink.

“He says it’s nice to meet you, too,” Sam translated.

She smiled, then walked out of the room shaking her head and muttering, “I must be insane...”

“She isn’t only one who’s insane,” Al chided. “Is it true? Did you just _propose_ to her?”

“Al... I love her. And she loves me. I just know that when I meet her, I’ll feel the same way.”

“Would you listen to what you’re saying? Just telling her about the project alone has already put it at risk. Ziggy says there’s a forty-three percent chance it’ll prevent you from ever returning home. _That’s_ why we don’t _tell_ people who we really _are_!” He repeatedly thrust an index finger at Sam to emphasis his point.

“Susan wouldn’t betray us,” Sam said. “In fact, she’s coming to work on it with us.”

“What all did you tell her?” Al asked. “Me, obviously. The string theory?”

“Yes.”

“Ziggy?” Al was growing more frantic and disbelieving.

“Yes.”

“Oh, my God. What else? You didn’t show her any of your incomprehensible equations, did you? Knowing her, she’s probably comprehend them and—”

“I told her everything,” Sam said evenly, holding the sketchbook full of scrawl in front of Al’s face. “Every single detail. If she wanted to, she could build an accelerator right now, in this very room.”

Al glared at his best friend. “And what’s to stop her from doing that very thing? Forty-three percent chance you don’t go home.”

“She won’t, Al.”

“How do you _know_?” asked the devil’s advocate.

“I can see it in her eyes.”

Al sighed. The noble and pure Sam Beckett was breaking all his own rules here. First, the nondisclosure rule. Not to mention the unethicality of leaping into a man and stealing his wife out from under his nose. Third, the cardinal rule—never, ever, _ever_ change anything that could affect either of their own lives. This, of course, had been broken on several occasions—notably when Sam saved his older brother (also named Tom, coincidentally) from dying in Vietnam and his younger sister Katie from marrying an abusive alcoholic.

Oh, and there was that time he had helped Donna Eleese, his first love who had left him at the altar prior to his first leap, to reconcile with her father, which would allow her to have a healthy relationship with Sam and cause her _not_ to leave him at the altar just before his first leap.

For reasons Al couldn’t explain, Sam had no memory of having a wife. Donna had expressly forbidden him from telling Sam about their marriage. She knew he wouldn’t be able to do his job if he knew he had a loving wife waiting for him in the future.

At least, in some timelines he did. In others? Nada. But there was no way for Al to tell from moment to moment which timeline he was in. There was no order or pattern to them. Sometimes he could go entire months in a line in which Sam was unmarried. Then suddenly, there was Donna. Something Sam had done in another leap would chain react into a new result in some form of the future. Only Al and Ziggy could remember all the timelines and how they had changed because only they were linked to Sam through brain cells. Everyone else’s lives just ran as smoothly and seamlessly as they were supposed to. They never noticed the changes, big or small, that Sam’s leaps had created.

Al knew there were a plethora of things that could happen when— _if_ —Susan showed up at the Project looking for a job. Sam could be married to Donna and wouldn’t give Susan a second look, and she would be devastated. Sam could be single and fall in love with Susan, maybe preventing him from stepping into the Accelerator at all. Or maybe _she_ would step into it instead. And what of Donna? Sam’s relationship with Susan could affect whether he even leaped back to help Donna in the first place. In some timelines, she may be living out a lonely, miserable existence. Donna, the most selfless woman in the world, who wouldn’t allow Al to tell her true love that she existed because otherwise he would never allow himself to fall in love with some other physicist he met on a leap so he could break up their unhappy marriage that had only happened because he’d misunderstood Ziggy’s readout.

The whole thing made his head hurt.

He now asked Ziggy via the handlink what she considered the most viable course of action. “Sam,” he said when he had the answer. “Under no circumstances can you allow Susan to meet your past self.”

“But why—?”

“I can’t explain. But Ziggy says it’s absolutely out of the question. You have to trust us on this one.”

“I trusted you and Ziggy when you said Tom and Susan were meant to be together. Ask Ziggy what the odds are that Susan and _I_ were meant to be together back in ’72.”

Al did. The answer made no sense. “Ninety-eight point nine percent,” he said vaguely.

“You see?” Sam said triumphantly. “I changed history. Susan and I were supposed to fall in love and get married.”

“What, in 1972? If that had happened, you’d have stranded Tom in the future and you’d have never leaped.”

“But I would, Al. In 1972, I was at MIT. I would still graduate, still create the Project, still leap.” He laughed joyously. “I _can_ have my cake and eat it, too!”

Al was losing him. “No, Sam, Ziggy says eighty-six percent chance you can’t let Susan meet you in New Mexico. At all.”

“Well, I don’t care what the odds say, Al. I’m sticking with the fourteen percent. I owe it to myself. And I owe it to Susan.” That said, he turned and stalked out of the room, closing the door in Al’s face.


	16. A Scout's Honor

When Susan climbed into bed with Sam that night, she was wearing a long-sleeved, floor-length, flower-print flannel nightgown. This was strictly a professional bedsharing. Sam’s job was to “be” Tom, and even though nothing was going on beneath the sheets between Tom and Susan, they still shared a bed—at least at her dad’s house, they did. Besides, there was nowhere else for Sam to sleep. She wasn’t about to let him sleep on the hardwood floor.

But Susan was taking no chances and so wore the most unattractive sleepwear she could find at the local discount department store. She had gone there after his proposal so she could buy him a fresh toothbrush and some underwear of his own. The flannel nightie was an afterthought.

Flirting with danger, however, she also brought a surprise to bed: a bottle of cheap red wine and two red Solo cups.

“What’s this for?”

“To celebrate,” she said.

Sam grinned. “You haven’t said yes yet.”

“I know,” she acknowledged, pouring wine into a cup and handing it to him. “But we should celebrate... whatever this relationship is. There’ve been a lot of confessions made and secrets revealed. And if nothing else, I think we both could use a drink.”

She poured herself a cup and held it up to him. He tapped his against hers and they sipped. Then they both grimaced.

“This is terrible!” Sam sputtered.

“Is it? I don’t drink wine. It all tastes bad to me.” She stuck her tongue out, wincing. She took another sip and said, “It’s a little better the second time.”

Sam tried another sip and said, “It’th making my tongue go numb.”

Susan laughed and relaxed against the pillow-lined headboard. “So. You’re not here to help us get over Mom’s death.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re here to.... keep Nana out of the nursing home?”

Sam looked at her in mild surprise. “That’s right.”

“Sam, you don’t know her like I do. She’s not the same person she was a few years ago. She’s fading away, giving up. Even before you and Al got here, she was hearing voices and seeing things. Confused about who was alive and who was gone. There are some nice facilities in Fort Wayne.”

“Well, that may be,” Sam said. “But right now, Ziggy says no nursing home. Not even a nice one.”

“Well, I guess you’re the expert. How long have you been doing this?”

“I have no idea,” he said into his Solo cup.

“And they all have to do with, like, domestic issues? Proposals, boyfriend abuse, elder care...?”

“No, actually,” Sam said, thinking back. “I’ve.... prevented kidnappings, stopped serial killers, saved lives. I think I might have.... abolished slavery? It’s hard to remember all the details. Kinda like trying to remember a dream.”

He took a sip of the wine. It was going down easier now that he couldn’t feel the interior of his mouth. It felt good to share this with another person besides Al. Leaping made him feels so disconnected. He found himself wishing Susan and he could team up and leap together. Something about that idea stopped him cold as if an icy hand had grabbed his heart. It was a vaguely terrifying case of déjà vu, but he had no idea why.

“You’ve saved _lives_ ,” she marveled, pouring more wine into their cups. “That’s amazing. And those people go on to do things they couldn’t have done otherwise. Have children they wouldn’t have had otherwise. And then their kids maybe go on to help someone else in some way. Butterfly afflecting the whole planet.”

“Butterfly _what_?” he laughed, his head a little fuzzy.

“Oh, you know,” she said waving her hand dismissively.  “The Butterfly Afflect.” She cleared her throat. “Af _fect_. Chaos Theory. Butterfly flaps his wings in New Mexico, starts a chain reaction of molecules that causes a hurricane in North Carolina, blah blah blah.” She stopped and opened her eyes wide in awe. “ _Oh my God!_ ” she squealed quietly and turned to him. “You’re George Bailey!”

“What?” he laughed again.

“You’ve had a wonderful life!”

He smiled a little sadly. “I guess I have.”

“I mean, it’s been wonderful for everyone whose lives you touch,” she said sympathetically, picking up on his emotion. “Maybe not so much for you. All these poor, sad people in trouble. How do you find them? Who do you know who needs help and how do you get there? I mean, who’s manning the controls?”

“Well—and here’s where it starts to get unscientific—we think maybe... God is controlling the leaps.”

“Wai—wha— _God_? Like... _the_ God? _God_ God?”

“Yeah. God or Fate or Time or something higher than ourselves.”

Susan drew a long, deep breath. “Whoa. That is... significant. But... why are you telling me all this? You must know I run a physics lab for a government project of my own. Why would you risk sharing all this with me? I could sabotage your project or beat you to the punch and take all the glory for myself.”

“But you won’t,” he said quietly.

“How can you be so sure?”

“My gut tells me to trust you.”

“But _why_?” Her face was getting close to his.

“Because I love you. And Al tells me I have good guts.”

She debated kissing him. She wanted to, his mouth was _right there_. But she felt that his declaration called for a grander gesture. She got out of bed, went to her suitcase, and pulled out her sketchbook. She tore out the sheet of paper containing all Sam’s calculations and equations and drawings and ripped it up into a thousand tiny pieces. Then she went into the adjoining restroom and beckoned for Sam to follow. Then she almost ritualistically tossed all the scraps into the toilet and flushed them into oblivion.

“We don’t want these inadvertently falling into the wrong hands.” She took his hand as they went back to bed.

“No, we certainly do not.”

“So, Dr. Sam Beckett,” she said, taking his hand and leading him back to the bed, “you know all about me. I know very little about you. Tell me about yourself.”

She took a long swig of wine as he told her that he’d grown up a hundred miles from her in Elk Ridge, Indiana. He had an older brother Tom who’d been in Vietnam—possibly killed, he wasn’t sure. And a younger sister Katie.

“What a coincidence,” she said, sipping more wine. “I have a husband named Tom!”

They laughed. “And a sister named Katie,” he said, remembering Susan’s story of her older sister who had gotten pregnant as a teenager and was kicked out of the house by their strict Catholic parents.

“Yeah, that’s right. I almost forgot.”

“Have you ever contacted her?”

“No.” She shook her head, then raised her eyebrows. “Hey, do you think maybe you’re—?”

“Here to help you find Katie? Ziggy doesn’t think so.”

Susan cocked her head at him. “What do _you_ think, Mr. Good Guts?”

Sam grinned. “Well, Al tells me I have a Boy Scout complex and I’m not happy unless everyone else is happy.”

She chuckled. “Sounds about right.” She stopped, suddenly remembering where she’d heard his name. “Oh, my _God!_ Sam Beckett. You won the Nobel Prize. You were on the cover of _Time_ magazine!” She turned and looked at him, her mouth dropped open excitedly as if it had just been announced that day. “They called you the next freaking _Einstein_! Oh, my God, _you’re Sam Beckett!_ ”

“You’re just now realizing this?”

“I’ve... had a lot to process, OK?” Her mental computer began churning out all the facts she knew about Dr. Sam Beckett. “You’re a quantum physicist _and_ a medical doctor. You travel through time, saving lives... I can’t believe I’m in bed with a _Time magazine cover boy_!” She lightly smacked him on the arm.

Sam covered his face with his hand, embarrassed but smiling ear to ear.

“Stop being so self-effacing!” she protested, hitting him gently with a pillow. “You’re pretty much the most amazing person I’ve ever met. And I’ve met Stephen Hawking!”

She continued to bop him with the pillow, laughing with him as he fended off her blows.

“Shhh! You’ll wake everyone!” he hissed.

“They’re deep sleepers,” she returned, getting him good in the face.

After a few seconds, he successfully blocked her and wrestled the pillow from her, gaining the upper hand. When the dust settled, he was on top of her, holding himself up by his arms, breathing heavily.

Suddenly neither of them was laughing.

She lay beneath him, breathless with anticipation. Slowly, Sam lowered himself onto her and kissed her. Granny nightie and all. She returned the kiss and buried her hands in his thick, soft hair.

Which was strange, because Tom had a buzz cut.

Her eyes opened wide and she saw Sam for the first time. He noticed her look of recognition and grinned, a little shyly. This wasn’t just her suddenly remembering what he’d looked like on the cover of _Time_. This was her actually seeing him—clearly—for the first time. And he wasn’t used to that. It made him feel slightly self-conscious.

“You’re _beautiful_ ,” she said.

He blushed and scoffed lightly. “Thanks.” Even his voice sounded different to her ears now.

She pulled his face back onto hers and kissed him again. This time it was different. She was kissing _Sam_ now, fully Sam. At some point, his shirt became disengaged from his body and although Susan’s nightgown was still technically “on,” she was feeling quite exposed as well.

The previous night was about to repeat itself when one—or maybe both—of them stopped.

“This isn’t right,” Sam whispered. “You’re still married.”

“I know,” she replied. “But...I’m not sure I care?”

They kissed again and more skin became exposed.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked, taking pauses for air. “Or is that the alcohol talking?”

“Why do you think I kept drinking that horrible stuff?” she asked as his lips nibbled her neck. “Why did you?”

He stopped. “Did you ply me with alcohol so you could take advantage of me?”

“I think I was taking advantage of both of us.”

Sam sighed and rolled off of her. They lay facing each other, regarding each other sadly.

“Ughhhh!” Susan growled after a moment.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed.

“Boy Scout complex....”

He ran a hand through his hair and chuckled. “Boy Scout complex.”

“I have a confession to make,” she said, pulling her nightgown down around her ankles again. He looked at her curiously. “That sorta makes me want you all the more.”

He smiled and kissed her forehead. They relaxed onto their respective pillows and stared at each other’s faces, as though trying to memorize each individual feature. As though they might never see each other again.


	17. A Mall and the Night Visitor

Thursday

The next morning, Sam awoke to see Susan lying on her side, staring at him. Her upper arm rested on her pillow and her head rested on her open palm.

“ _Gute Morgen,_ ” she teased, utilizing one of the six languages she knew he spoke.

 _“Bon jour,_ ” he returned, stretching.

“I had a dream about us,” she said. “We got married on the Tonight Show. Ed McMahon came out onstage and said if anyone had any objections to our union, to speak now or forever hold his peace. Al came running up from the audience yelling that he objected, but no one could hear him except me.” She paused but couldn’t remember any more. “He’s really worried, isn’t he? About me screwing up your project?”

“Yeah.” Sam sat up in bed and scootched back, leaning against the headboard. “But he won’t tell me why.”

“Maybe he’s afraid you’ll fall so in love with me, you won’t leap. But I’d never let that happen, because if you never went back in time, I’d never have met you.” She paused. “Wait, would I?”

Sam hesitated. “Some questions are better left unanswered.”

“Well, I guess I understand the conundrum.”

“But it’s not his decision to make. It’s ours.” He reached out a hand and touched her face. “Have you made yours?”

She took a shaky breath. “I don’t know. But even if you’re just not that into me, how could I not be involved with the most incredible scientific breakthrough in history? So to speak. If you fall in love with me, we could call that an added bonus.”

“Of course I’ll fall in love with you. Ziggy is a computer, but she’s a part of me. If she says we were meant to be married, then we’re meant to be married.”

“And what does she say about me meeting you in New Mexico?”

Sam didn’t want to lie to her, but he knew if he told her the truth, it might prevent her from coming to his rescue.

“Well, _Al_ is against it. He’s afraid you’re gonna sabotage the project and prevent my coming home.”

“Is that based on what Ziggy told him?”

He sighed. Susan knew how to spot bullshit. He hemmed and hawed. “Eh...she... put the odds under 50%.” He left out the part about Ziggy’s 86% odds against Susan meeting Sam in New Mexico at all. Those numbers didn’t make sense anyway. How could those odds be twice as high as the odds that her meeting him would cause him to be stranded in Leapville forever?

“Sam, look at me. Are you telling me everything?”

He shook his head, partly in answer and partly in wonder that she could read him like a book. “No. Ziggy says there’s 86% chance you shouldn’t meet me in New Mexico. But Al won’t tell me why.”

Susan frowned thoughtfully. “Does he think he knows something about my background—about my project—that would put yours in danger?”

“No, no!” Sam said hastily, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Nothing like that. He knows you’d never do anything like that.”

“But...what if I’m somehow responsible for changing the accelerator in some way that causes damage or affects the way it works.” She looked up at him. “What If I’m the reason you’re stuck leaping back and forth through time?”

“That can’t be, because it’s already happened. In the timeline I’m from, you and I never met. Maybe in _your_ timeline, you _do_ meet me and you make the necessary fix to the accelerator, knowing what you know now. It can only help me.”

“Or make it worse.”                                                                                   

“You won’t make it worse,” he said warmly. “I believe in you.”

“But Ziggy doesn’t.”

“Ziggy’s been wrong before. She was wrong about you and Tom.”

“She was misinterpreted,” Susan corrected him. “I just don’t want to go against her advice and live to regret it. She’s part of you, you said. So I’d be going against your advice.”

“My only regret would be if you didn’t give me a chance to love you,” Sam said.

“You say ‘you,’ but you really mean your younger self. You’ll leap out of here and possibly never see me again. But I’ll meet the Sam in New Mexico. And you’ll never know if it worked out or not.”

He shook his head. “If you change my timeline, I’ll know.”

“Are you sure about that?”

He wasn’t.

“I am.”

“Have you ever gone against Ziggy’s advice before?”

“I have.”

“Did you regret it?”

He thought back. “I don’t think so,” he said with only the smallest hesitation.

She tried to interpret the level of doubt his face registered. “Or maybe that’s what Swiss-cheesed memory is for.”

********

That night Sam took Susan on a date to Sbarro’s at the mall. “I haven’t been here since I was fifteen,” she explained. “Mom and I used to come here after my piano lessons every week.”

After a dinner of very bad pizza (“It tasted better in my memory,” she apologized), they stopped in to Reader’s World. She picked up a beautiful, shiny coffee table book about Renaissance Faires. “Have you ever been to one of these?”

Sam shook his head.

“Neither have I. Always wanted to. Any of those re-enactment-of-olden-days types of things. You get the flavor of the time but the comfort and safety of now.”

“Yeah,” Sam said with a smile. He’d gotten used to comfort and safety during this leap. A little too used to it.

“If you could go back in time _beyond_ your own lifetime,” she asked, “how far back would you go?”

He thought for a moment. “I kind of wanna say I already _have_ , but.... I don’t know.” He looked at the book in her hand. “Not _that_ far.”

She set the book down and casually browsed the rows, thumbing books on Celtic jewelry, science fiction TV shows, and annotated children’s classics. He smiled at her eclectic tastes. Then they made their way to the section on religion for what they were really there for—a book on Catholic marriage and annulment.

“It says for a marriage to be valid,” Susan said as she read, “both parties must have gone into it through free will. If one of the parties entered the marriage through coercion or through false pretenses, then the marriage isn’t valid.”

“I’d say Tom’s end of the marriage qualifies,” Sam said. “If anyone entered a marriage through false pretenses, it was him.”

“Oh, poor Tom,” Susan winced. “This is not a conversation I’m looking forward to. How do I tell him the reason he didn’t realize he’d proposed to me was because he _hadn’t_? I know, I know, I can’t tell him that. But what about the past twenty-one years we’ve been living in sin?”

Sam was a man of science, not religion, so he found her strict adherence to her Catholic faith almost naïve. But then he realized it was a lot like the difference between his own compunctions against sleeping around and Al’s casual attitude toward sex. Neither was necessarily right or wrong, just different. And they still respected each other when all was said and done.

“Susan, our situation is something no pope has ever had to consider,” he told her. “They just don’t have a chapter in this book about time travelers who leap into Catholics. You remained faithful for over twenty years to a man who didn’t love you. You’re a good Catholic.” A thought struck him and he added, “Your mom would be proud.”

Her eyes unexpectedly filled with tears. She smiled a crooked cry-smile and nodded her thanks for his understanding as the tears spilled down her cheeks. When her throat relaxed enough to speak without choking, she said, “I’m gonna run to the restroom a minute, OK?”

“Sure.”

She put a grateful hand on his arm and got up to head for the restroom. She blew her nose and checked her mascara in the mirror. Her hands were cold and she ran warm water over them. She looked again at her reflection and wondered what a gorgeous, brilliant, _holy_ man—after all, he’d been chosen by God (or Time or Fate or Whatever)—like Dr. Beckett saw in her. She was a little paunchy, her hair had lost its luster, and worry lines covered her face. Her facial features had always been imperfect, in her own opinion. Was this real, his love for her? It didn’t make sense.

 _Well, does it make sense that he’s traded places in time with my husband_? she asked herself. _No. No, it does not. But if God has sent him on this mission, then He must know what He’s doing. And so does Sam._

As she was deliberating, she felt a cold draft behind her, as if a door had whooshed open. She shivered and felt as if someone were watching her.

When Al realized he was standing in the ladies’ room, he apologized perfunctorily and averted his eyes. Glancing behind him, he realized he and Susan were alone.

“Susan, you’ll be making a big mistake meeting Sam Beckett!” he shouted. “He’s already married! You can’t accept his proposal because he’s already married!”

Susan didn’t hear him.

Ziggy signaled Al through the handlink. “Speak calmly, Admiral,” the readout said. “Remember when you were in Ben’s car during the last leap?”

Al did remember. He took a deep breath and crooned in her ear, “Sooooosan. Don’t marry Saaaaaam.”

Susan increased the water pressure to full blast and let the heat of the water thaw her icy hands. The pouring water was loud and Al raised his voice again. “Don’t doooo it, Soooosan! Don’t accept!”

She turned off the water and pressed the button on the hand dryer.

“Susaaaaan!” Al said loudly, waving his arms in the air. “Dammit, Susan! Listen to me! Sam’s already married, so you can’t marry him. Just go back to D.C. and live your life there.”

The dryer had turned off and Susan was already halfway to the door. “Don’t do it, Susan! Don’t accept!”

“Shut up, Al,” Susan whispered as she exited the restroom. He didn’t hear her. Al smacked the buttons on the handlink roughly with his fingers and disappeared from the room.

Susan found Sam sitting on a bench outside Reader’s World. She was grinning so hard she was developing a cramp. “Sam,” she said, “I accept your proposal.”

By this time, Al, who had reappeared next to Sam, was incensed. What was he here for if Sam wasn’t even going to heed his counsel? “Are you _crazy_ , Sam? You know what the odds are!”

“I don’t care,” Sam answered.

“Y-you—excuse me?” Susan stammered.

“Oh, not you!” Sam held his hands up. “Al! He just got here and he told me I was crazy.”

“Oh, my God, don’t do that,” she said, her hand to her chest.

“Sam Beckett, you cannot go through with this!” Al ordered.

“Al, I told you,” Sam said, standing up and looking at him. “I don’t care what Ziggy says the odds are. Her odds have been known to be wrong. I follow my gut, and my gut tells me this is the right thing to do.”

Al shook his head in frustration. “Sam, I know you’ve been right before. But this time, you’re _really_ wrong.”

The sincerity in Al’s voice made Sam stop in his tracks. “Why?” he asked softly.

Al opened his mouth to spill the beans then slammed it shut. After all, a promise was a promise. He would have to find another way to convince him without telling him the truth. Cool and aloof, his head held high, he answered, “You just are.” And with that, he was gone.

Sam felt he had hurt Al’s feelings but he didn’t understand why he was taking things so personally. It’s not like being married would change how much Al meant to him. Al was too sensible to let something like that worry him. The worst that could happen would be that Susan might stop him from prematurely leaping. She had government ties. Maybe she could help him get more funding for Project Quantum Leap and they wouldn’t be in danger of shutting down. It would give them the time they needed to complete the project.

“He’s gone,” Sam told Susan. He took her hands in his. “Do you mean it? You’re gonna get an annulment and marry me?”

“Well, I’ll look you up in New Mexico,” she corrected him. “And we’ll see if you feel the way you do now.”

“I will,” he said firmly. “I know I will.”

 


	18. A Confession and a Promise

Friday

The next morning, Veronica prepared French toast and ham for the family. Susan and Tom entered the dining room and Susan drew open the curtains, letting the sun shine in.

“Where’s Nana?” Susan asked her father as she sat down at the table.

“Still asleep,” her dad said gruffly, already eating and looking through a brochure.

“Seriously? She’s usually up before dark.”

“Not lately. She sleeps ‘til ten, eleven o’clock most days now.”

Susan and Sam shared a look. They’d had a long talk about the Nana situation the night before and it was time to discuss matters with Mr. Blake.

“Dad, Tom and I have been giving a lot of thought to all this with Nana and the nursing home.”

“You have, huh?” he chuckled good-naturedly, making her feel like a twelve-year-old. At least he didn’t ruffle her hair. “Well, why don’t you just leave that to me to worry about?”

“Because,” she replied, “she’s my grandmother. I think I should have some say about her care.”

“Susan, it’s settled. After New Year’s, I’m taking her to St. Theresa’s.” He gestured toward Nana’s room. “Case in point, sleeps all morning. And she can’t get around, she can’t see or hear. She’s confused all the time, hallucinates....”

“What’s the main reason, Frank?” Sam asked quietly. During the preceding conversation, he had noticed Veronica giving Mr. Blake quiet looks and secret smiles. And he had been returning them.

“What do you mean?” he asked, setting his fork down. This was getting serious.

“She’s not as deaf as she makes out,” Sam apprised his presumed future father-in-law. “I think she’s just frustrated and bored. She tunes everything out and ignores what’s going on around her. And I don’t think she’s that blind.”

Actually, he knew she wasn’t, as she could easily see him at the church when he gave the eulogy. He looked around the room. “The lighting in here isn’t very good,” he went on. “That morning sun is the only natural light this house ever gets, and you’ve been keeping the curtains pulled. I think if you installed overhead lights and talked to her about things she finds interesting, you’d find her sight and hearing to be pretty darn good for a woman her age. As for getting around, there are plenty of modifications that can be done to her room, her bathroom, the front porch, to help her.”

Mr. Blake was stopped in his tracks. None of that had even occurred to him. “Yeah, but her hallucinations,” he said a little defensively. “Thinking you were an imposter, seeing people who aren’t there, conversations with dead relatives. Forgetting everything, repeating herself. That’s been going on for months.”

“Susan and I were talking about that last night,” Sam said. “I’d like to take a look at—I mean, I think a doctor should take a look at her medical prescriptions. Certain combinations can result in side effects that mimic dementia or Alzheimer’s. It’s possible her mind and body are sound and there’s no reason she shouldn’t continue living here.”

Mr. Blake smiled indulgently. “Look, Tom I know you’re just trying to help, but this is a family matter.”

“I am a member of this family, Frank,” Sam said. Susan smiled slightly. Her father would never know the irony of that statement.

“Yes, of course, I know, but—“

“So what is the real reason you’re so hell-bent on sending Nana to a nursing home?”

“Wha--?” Mr. Blake began, then scoffed, in lieu of giving an answer.

“You’re up for retirement soon, right? I’ve seen brochures for RVs all over the house. You’ve got one right now.”

Mr. Blake’s face grew red and beads of nervous perspiration formed on his brow.

“I can understand wanting the freedom to relax and travel during your retirement,” Sam said, then felt suddenly weary. “Believe me. I can. And a ninety-year-old might not be the travel companion you had in mind.” He glanced at Veronica, who was ashen.

Mr. Blake’s jaw set. “I really don’t see how any of this is your—”

“He’s right, Dad,” Susan said, feeling horrible about the confrontation but knowing it was the right thing to do. “If Nana has the chance at a more fulfilling life here, don’t we owe it to her? She won’t be around forever. She’ll be gone before we know it....”

Her voice trailed off and she felt overwhelmed with feelings of loss and dread. This family had made an art out of losing one another.

Quite without meaning to, Veronica burst out, “She’s right, Frank! We can wait for the RV. I love your mother, and I want to get to know her. I’ve read that, too, about medication cross-reactions causing mental confusion in the elderly. She deserves to be with people who love her and care for her for as long as we can. My brother’s a contractor. He can install ramps, handrails, a modified shower....”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Mr. Blake relented. “I’ll call the doctor after we eat. If they get her meds straightened out, then we’ll call your brother and get some damn handrails installed.”

Susan was elated that her grandmother had a second chance. She also knew that when Sam’s work was done, he leaped. She looked at him questioningly and he mouthed, “I’m still here.”

She smiled, but she was a mass of conflicting emotions. Her mother was barely cold in her grave and her father was already making plans to travel the country with a younger woman. How long had they been together? Did he hire his mistress or fall for the help? But those were questions for another day—if ever. Did it really matter, after all? Her mom had been sick for a long time, and her dad had been by her side until the end.

And was it any worse than what she was planning to do to Tom?

She knew that once they talked it through, Tom would quickly realize that this granted him the freedom to get on with his life and find someone he actually loved—not just someone he felt obligated to. And with Tommy grown up now, there was nothing keeping him with her but Catholic doctrine.

The hard part would be how the family would take it. They’d kept up a perfect façade for two decades. Cheerful Christmas cards, smiles at family gatherings, little white lies about “how they were doing.” Tommy seemed oblivious to any problems they might be having. He didn’t even question their separate bedrooms. But the few relatives she had who had split with their spouses were now on the family blacklist. As easily discarded as an old newspaper.

Or an unwed teenaged mother.

 _Kaitlyn_ , she thought. _She must be why Sam is still here._

********

As much as Al hated to admit it, Ziggy was not as all-knowing as she pretended to be. She claimed to never make mistakes and became downright vexed when accused of doing so. Not that Al blamed her. If there _was_ a higher power controlling things, it was possible He/She/It was usurping Ziggy’s ability to predict outcomes based on the limited (although vast) knowledge she had been programmed with and that she had access to.

Walking into the Control Room, he saw Donna, whom he hadn’t seen in a few days. “Hiya, beautiful,” he greeted her. “How’s it going today?”

“Just fine. Ziggy thinks the reason Sam hasn’t leaped has to do with Susan’s sister Kaitlyn. She’s running a check on women with variations on her name with her birth date.”

“Beautiful, Ziggy,” Al said. “So you’ve changed your tune about Kaitlyn, huh?”

“My ‘tune,’ Admiral?” the computer asked innocently.

“Your _mind_ ,” he corrected patiently.

“As you recall, Sam believed her to be part of his first leap. Apparently, Admiral,” she added with mild triumph, “he _can_ win them all.” That Ziggy. Even claiming a win when she’s proven wrong.

“So Nana doesn’t get stuck in a nursing home?”

“Indeed not. Once she was given a proper combination of pharmaceuticals, her health and well-being improved vastly. She lived at home for another four years and died peacefully in her sleep.”

“Well, that’s aces,” he said with some lack of enthusiasm.

“Al, you’re still worried about Susan,” Donna said.

“I just feel so sorry for her. Her world keeps turning upside down and backside up and downside—” He was gesturing broadly with his arms and cigar and getting himself twisted. “Well, it’s messed up,” he finished.

“I know. Sam is a very difficult man to get over.”

“How do you do it, Donna? Go on, day after day, without him?

She shrugged helplessly. “I just do.”

Al and Donna shared a common bond and mutual respect that few could fully understand. They each had to carry on having lost their love of their loves.

“You know, if Susan _did_ come to New Mexico and _warned_ Sam...”

“No, Admiral,” Ziggy interrupted. “Under no circumstance.”

“Okay, okay.” He hadn’t been able to get a straight answer out of the bucket of neurons on the subject. Was her insistence Susan stay away due to timeline issues, respect for Donna and Sam’s marriage, or.... what? He honestly wasn’t sure Ziggy knew herself.

“Are you ready?” Donna asked.

“I’m ready.” He stepped into the Imaging Chamber.

“Good luck.”

********

Nana didn’t hear the whooshing sound. She was lying awake on her bed, rosary beads between her long, thin fingers. Her lips moved silently as she worked her way around the circle.

Al cleared his throat. “Mrs. Blake?” he asked. She did not respond, so he raised his voice. “Mrs. Blake? Can you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“Hi, Mrs. Blake,” he said politely, bouncing lightly on his heels. “Uh, we were never properly introduced. My name is Albert Calavicci. But you can call me Al.”

“Susan likes that song.”

“Er—excuse me?”

“’You Can Call Me Al.’ The Paul Simon song. From the _Graceland_ album.”

“Uh, you really know your popular music, Mrs. Blake.” Al was impressed.

Nana sat up on her bed. “Yes, music is important to me. And now that Sam helped me get my medication figured out, maybe I can start listening to it again without hearing the voice of my dead husband tellin’ me there’s chipmunks in the freezer.”

That one stymied Al just a little bit. “Uh. Yeah. That’ll be nice...” His voice trailed off uncertainly. Then he remembered why he was here. “Uh, Mrs. Blake. I have something kinda delicate to talk with you about. Just so we’re clear... Sam told you all about who he is and why he’s here.”

“And who you are,” she smiled knowingly. “His best friend and ‘companion.’”

Al’s eyes bugged out. He wasn’t expecting such open-mindedness from the elderly Catholic. “Uh, well, no. I mean, yes to best friend, _kinda_ yes to companion, but... not _that_ kind of companion.” He cleared his throat. “I have a girlfriend.”

“Oh! Well, I see...” That put things into a different perspective for her. It had been one thing for Susan to be sharing a bed with a homosexual, but this was another matter entirely.

“And that kinda brings me to my point.” He decided it was best to just say it all quickly and be done with it. “Uh, long story short, Sam proposed to Susan in 1972 not Tom, Sam and Susan are in love, Tom and Susan never loved each other, Sam proposed to Susan again two days ago, and Sam doesn’t know it but he’s actually married.”

As sharp as Nana was, she still had to have Al go over this a few more times.

She felt horrible for poor Tom, but it explained a lot about his personality. And she didn’t really blame Susan for wanting to marry a doctor over a teacher. But the fact was, she _had_ married him. She’d had plenty of time to figure out he wasn’t who she’d thought he was. She chose to marry him anyway and to raise her son with him. She’d made her bed...

But this whole business about Sam being married already—and not even remembering it. That took the cake!

“So that’s why I’m here,” Al said. “To ask you to tell Susan about Sam's wife. She can’t hear me like you can, so you’ll have to relay the message for me. But Sam can’t know that he’s married. That’s a very important rule. Tell Susan that Sam is married. Don’t let Sam know he’s married. Can ya do that for me?”

“Of course I can,” she promised.

“Thank you, Mrs. Blake.”

“Oh, Al,” she said. “You can call me Nana.”

Al was touched. He’d never had a nana. He gave her a tender smile. “I’ve gotta go now. Good luck.”

“God bless you, Al.”

“God bless you, too, Nana.”


	19. A Sister Wife

Nana left Al alone in her room and went to the living room where Susan and Sam were sitting. She asked Susan to take her to the mall so she could look at the Christmas decorations before they took them down. Sam and Susan exchanged smiles. “Sure thing, Nana,” Susan said. “Sam, I’ll get your coat, too.”

“No, honey,” she said. “Just us girls today, all right?”

“Oh. Sure thing!” As she went to the closet to get the coats, Susan squeezed Sam’s arm gratefully.

The ladies left and Al, who had been listening silently from Nana’s room, closed the Imaging Chamber door via his handlink and then re-appeared in the living room next to Sam.

“So, ah, how’s everything going?” Al asked with over-nonchalance.

“Great,” Sam answered. “The doctor got Mrs. Blake’s medication straightened out and she’s already more lucid. Although I think just knowing her family is on her side is responsible for a lot of that.”

“Yeah, you kept her out of the old folks’ home and she dies in her sleep at the ripe ol’ age of a hundred and three. In her own bed. Ya did good.”

“So why haven’t I leaped? Kaitlyn, right?”

“Yeah, Ziggy’s running a location search. It won’t be long before she finds her. We think she changed her name or just hasn’t left a very wide footprint.”

Sam nodded, then looked at his friend suddenly. “Did you say a hundred and three?”

“Yeah, can you believe it? She’s ninety-nine years young. But she woulda been dead by Easter if she’d gone to St. Theresa’s.” He shook his head. “She’s lucky to have you, Sam.” He winced, wishing he could take it back.

He’d just implied that Sam was a part of Mrs. Blake’s family.

********

As Susan drove, her grandmother seemed pensive. The traffic light turned red and Susan turned to look at her. “What’s on your mind, Nana?”

“You and Sam,” she answered promptly. “I think you two are becoming too attached.”

“Well, I mean...we are attached. We have a lot in common. We’re both physicists, he’s helped me through some tough times in my life. And he needs a friend right now.”

“That all you are to each other? Friends?”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“Are you in love with each other?”

Susan sat in the driver’s seat, contemplating that one. The sound of a car horn blaring behind her jolted her out of her stupor and she drove through the green light and turned into the mall parking lot. “Nana, we do care for each other a lot. There is love between us.....”

“Are you planning to divorce Tom and marry him?”

There was no use denying it. “Yes, Nana. I do. We didn’t tell you this before, but Sam was here back in ’72, when I was pregnant with Tommy. He and I fell in love then, but because he was ....’leaped’ into Tom, it was... confusing. Tom never loved me, never has. It was Sam all the time, and _he_ was the one who proposed to me. Not Tom. As far as I’m concerned, in the eyes of God, I married Sam, not Tom.”

“That might be,” Nana said, “but you’re wrong about Tom. He loves you. He told me so when you two first arrived for the funeral. And he wasn’t lying. I could see it in his eyes. And I know you loved Tom when you were young. Before you got pregnant. _After_ you got pregnant. When he dropped everything to move to Arizona to help you go to school and raise that baby. You know you loved him for that.”

“That may be, but it doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t accept his proposal. I accepted Sam’s. And God has sent him back to me to put right the mistake that Tom and I made. He’s come back to let me know where he is so I can find him and we can finally be together.”

“But honey,” Nana said gently. “Sam is already married.”

Susan felt a sudden icy shiver, as if someone had stabbed her through the heart with an icicle. “He’s...what?”

“He’s married. Al told me.”

“He said he was single,” Susan said, feeling anger and betrayal envelope her. “Sam wouldn’t lie to me.”

“Sam doesn’t know himself. It’s his cheesy memory or something like that. He’s _not_ to know he’s married, though, Susan. Al made that very clear. He said Sam would never get to go home if he knew he was married.”

None of this made any sense. First of all, Swiss cheese or no Swiss cheese, how could Sam forget he was married? Second, why would being told he was married keep him from ever going home? The worst that could happen was he would know that he had someone waiting for him, loving him, supporting him, missing him. Aching for him. Dying to be with him.

And what of Sam? She knew he was a one-woman man. Moral and loyal to a fault. He had made love to her three nights ago—oh my God, was it only three nights ago?—under the guise of Tom. He thought he was single. If he had known he was married, he never would have done that. He couldn’t even make love to her now, knowing she was married—even unhappily so. He was a man of honor and commitment. If making love to her that night would have been crucial to his mission, and his honor as a married man had stopped him.... he never would have completed his mission. And he would have been stuck, never to leap again. Never to leap back home.

But none of this changed the fact that God had sent Sam to fall in love with her twenty-one years ago. There had to be something to that. It was just too soon, of course. She was only sixteen, and even though she’d been mature for her age, Sam would never have done anything untoward. So He had to send him back later to get his second chance.

Al must be wrong—or lying. Sam couldn’t be married. Or if he was, then it was a mistake. Like her marriage to Tom.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “You’re right. I can see that.”

Nana patted Susan on the knee. “I knew you’d understand. When Tom comes back, you can go to Marriage Encounter and everything’ll work out fine. You’ll see.”

And with that, she was out of the car to enjoy a pleasant evening of window shopping and Christmas decorations with her granddaughter. She was so happy she was able to stop that girl from making the biggest mistake of her life. It would have hurt Susan something fierce to go to New Mexico and discover on her own that Sam was married.


	20. A Husband in Waiting

“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”

“Aw, Tom,” Al protested, “you know that’s not true.”

“I know it’s not, Al,” Tom admitted as he paced the Waiting Room. “But that’s what Susan thinks. She doesn’t mind my teaching, but she thinks it should be at the university level. But she doesn’t understand why I do what I do. Every year there’s at least one, two kids who think science is too hard for them. It’s usually girls. And the best part of my job is getting those kids to see that they’re capable of understanding it. They may not go on to become professional scientists, but they walk away able to see their world in a more scientific way.”

“Did you ever express it to Susan like that?” Al asked. “That’s fantastic!”

“No. She couldn’t care less about what I do at work. And she’s too important to talk about _her_ work. ‘Top Secret government stuff’ is the most detail I get when I ask what she did all day.”

“Well, she can’t very well blow her clearance, can she?” Al asked.

Tom threw his hands up in the air. “I know, but... she could tell me how she’s doing _emotionally_. I can tell the work is really getting to her. I’ve seen anyone more tense. And I thought teaching high school was stressful.”

“Some women don’t want to talk about their emotions all the time,” Al said, then muttered as if to himself, “I wish my second wife had felt that way....” He rubbed the back of his neck absent-mindedly, remembering the toaster hitting him there after an especially emotional conversation

“Well, I need more communication from her, Al. I need more _feeling_ from her. I get nothing but a brick wall. We don’t talk. She’s never home. We sleep in separate rooms. It’s like we’re not even married.”

“Do you think she’s cheating on you?” Al asked guiltily. He wouldn’t have thought that of Susan before she’d reunited with Sam. But now, who knows?

“No. I think she’s just still carrying emotional scars from her rape as a teenager,” Tom said with straightforward candor. “I’ve been trying to get her to see a therapist for years, but she refuses to talk about it. Honestly, I think she still has feelings for the guy, although I’d never say that out loud.”

“Aw, no,” Al argued, “you don’t think she’s really carrying a torch for that knuckle-nose!” Al felt a twinge of guilt, remembering that Ben had turned his life around after prison and became a monk in Tennessee.

“I don’t know. He was her first love. Her first sexual experience. Her parents are so strict. Maybe in some twisted way, she thinks that’s what love is. And she can’t be attracted to a ‘nice guy’ like me.”

Think of his friend, grownup boy scout Sam Beckett, Al opened his mouth and cocked his head, unsure how to refute that. Instead he said, “Tom, trust me. She does _not_ love Ben Cooke. Never has... Not like that.”

“Then who was her first love? Me?” Tom looked beseechingly at Al, who avoided his gaze. “I don’t know if she ever loved me. You know how I said earlier that I’d had this dream once before? The other time was when I was at the end of my student teaching and I proposed to her. I have no idea what got in me. It was like someone else was talking for me. I just heard myself saying the words, and when I realized what I’d said, I was too embarrassed to take it back.”

“So... do you love her?”                                  

“God, yes. I really did. I mean, at first, she was like a sister to me. And then when we started to get closer, I felt this overwhelming love for her. And then it ....”

“Disappeared in a bright blue flash?” Al asked quietly.

Tom shook his head. “It dissipated. Slowly over time.”

“Like a residual memory?” Al wasn’t sure if he should feel relieved or disheartened.

“Yeah, I guess... She was busy with school and work. I was busy with the baby. We drifted apart. Didn’t have as much in common anymore.” He took a deep breath, prepared to hear the worst. “So what does this mean, Al? I was momentarily possessed and not in my right mind when I proposed? Should we...separate?”

“I can’t tell you what to do, buddy. That’s your decision. Yours and Susan’s.”

“Well, what good is my subconscious if I can’t tell myself what I feel?”

“Oh, I wish Verbeena was here,” Al muttered under his breath, looking around and scratching his head with the hand holding his cigar.

“Yeah,” Tom said. “I wonder where I’m keeping her? A psychiatrist is just what I need right now.”

“She’ll be here soon,” Al promised. “I think she just wants you to figure this out for yourself.”

“Well, if it were up to me, I’d just stay the course.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because I love her. I can’t imagine my life without her in it. And because if I divorced Susan, I’d just be tempted to turn to another woman.”

Al gaped at him. “And that would be a _problem_?”

“Of course it would. I took a vow of faithfulness to Susan before God. To the death.”

“Are you for real?” Al said, aghast.

“Of course,” Tom grinned. “Why would I lie to myself?”

“I lie to myself all the time.”

“Yeah,” Tom said, his grin fading. “I guess I do, too.”

Tom missed Patrick. He wasn’t sure why his best friend had manifested in his dreams as a crusty Italian guy with a cigar, but he accepted his companionship with gratitude.

********

Al left the Waiting Room and headed determinedly for the Control Room. Once there, he asked Ziggy the odds that Tom had in fact been the one who was supposed to marry Susan and not Sam. The almost reluctant answer was 98.7%. The same odds she had given Al just before Sam-as-Tom had proposed—minus point-two percent.

“Ziggy, how could that be? They were _both_ _unequivocally_ meant to propose to Susan that day in 1972?”

“Yes, Admiral,” the computer stated. Her voice softened as she added, “With a point-two percent advantage for Dr. Beckett.”

“And the odds Tom should stay married to Susan?”

“Ninety-eight point seven percent.”

Al squeezed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “And the odds that Susan can’t meet Sam in New Mexico?”

“Eighty-six percent.”

“So, Ziggy, why was Sam supposed to propose to Susan in 1972?”

“Because he loves her,” she said simply.

“ _How is that helpful_?!” Al waved his arms in the air.

“I am merely presenting you with my findings, Admiral.”

Al chuffed a loud breath and stepped into the Imaging Chamber with a mixed bundle of emotions. On the one hand, it was a relief that neither Ziggy nor Sam had made a huge mistake when he proposed to her on behalf of Tom that day. On the other hand, they were _both_ supposed to fall in love with her? That seemed to contradict the 86% chance that Sam and Susan’s proposed proposal attempt in New Mexico would have disastrous consequences.

It had been easier for Sam and Susan when they thought Sam was meant for her instead of Tom. But this changed everything. Not only did Tom still love Susan, but Ziggy said they should almost absolutely stay married.

Sam hadn’t leaped back to break up their marriage; he was there to put it right.

Complicating things further was Sam and Susan’s apparent love for each other. Their brain waves were in sync, clearly. She had been able to see him, at least as a teenager. They shared something fundamental, a way of thinking, that was unique to the two of them. They were just confusing that with love, that’s all.

As for Sam, he was still feeling Tom’s residual memory. Even Al himself had experienced this when he had leaped. But he had to remember that when Sam fell in love, he fell fast and he fell hard. Maybe that was his own residual memory of his love for Donna. He was subconsciously seeking that feeling in all the wrong leaps.

Or maybe it was an instinct that helped him become so embedded and invested in the lives of the people he leaped into. People were dying all over the place, every day. But he wasn’t there for everybody. He couldn’t be.

But Al had to admit, there was something about Susan. She was a little world-worn now, but she still had that nameless quality that exuded goodness and beauty. It was similar to how he felt about Beth and how Sam had felt about Donna.

“Gooshie,” he said at last, “center me on Susan.”

********

Susan was singing “O Holy Night” as she attempted to trim the edge of the red and gold wrapping paper so it would be even with the edge of the box. She trimmed it crookedly and was compelled to trim it back the other way. Eventually, she was left with too little paper and too much package.

Undaunted, she cut a narrow strip of paper, slid it into the slot between paper and gift, carefully matching the pattern on the paper, and taped it all together. She was a regular expert at patchwork wrapping.

Al watched her for a moment, charmed by the girlishness of her solitude. Her eyes sparkled like those of a teenager in love. He had seen eyes like those before. They absolutely broke his heart.

“Truly He taught us to love one another,” Susan sang, beginning the third verse of the song. She was also an expert at esoteric Christmas song lyrics. “His law is love and His Gospel is peace.”

“Susan,” he said quietly.

“Chains shall He....” Her voice trailed off. She continued to wrap but seemed to be listening. Could Sam hear her from the shower? That would be embarrassing.

“Susan, this is Al. Can you hear me, sweetheart?” In spite of her early middle age, Al continued to think of her as a girl.

The corner of Susan’s mouth twitched. She cleared her throat. “Hi, Al,” she whispered, then blushed, feeling ridiculous. She didn’t know if she was imagining things or not, although she did believe in Al. It was just embarrassing to address the mid-air when she wasn’t entirely sure she’d heard him.

“Can you see me, honey?”

The voice seemed like it was coming from far away and nearby at the same time. She looked around but could only see the room. She shook her head, still too shy to speak out loud.

“Well, that’s OK, I can see you. And you can hear me. That’s what matters most.” He paused. “I s’pose you know why I’m here.”

“I have—” Her voice broke. She cleared her throat again and spoke with more force. “I have a pretty good idea.”

“It’s not just about Sam and his wife. It’s about Tom.” Susan waited, still staring through him, unseeing. “Tom thinks he’s having a lucid dream and that I represent Patrick.”

She smiled and looked down. “You don’t look anything like Patrick.”

“I know. He thinks he’s talking to his subconscious, aaand he’s told me some pretty personal things about himself and about his relationship with you....”

Susan blushed and put a hand to her face. “Oh, noooo.”

“It’s nothing awful, don’t worry. But he’s pretty upset.” He eyed her carefully, wondering how far he should take this. “He...says you refuse to sleep with him.” He was fudging the truth a little, feeling her out.

“Oh, my God.” Susan lowered her head into her hands. She sat back up again and said, “Al, he snores so loud I sometimes can’t sleep from across the house. _He’s_ the one who set up the guest bedroom for me. I thought it was an excuse to kick me out of his bed.”

“Well, yeah, that...” Al said, backtracking. He didn’t think either of them was shading the truth. They both seemed to have very different takes on the subject. “But did you make a case for staying in his bed?”

“Well... no. I have to admit, I do sleep better on my own.” She blushed again, thinking of how cozy it was to spoon Sam. “I mean, without the snoring.”

Al hunkered down next to Susan, who was still on the floor. “Honey, I know this is hard to hear. But Tom loves you. He’s been pulling away because he thinks you don’t love him.”

“Why would he think that?” She had been doing the same thing for years.

“Well, from what Dr. Beeks, our psychiatrist, can tell, he has a major big-time inferiority complex. He thinks you look down on him.”

“Oh, please,” she said dismissively. “He’s doing God’s work. Those kids are the worst.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “A lot of them are. And he needs to be able to tell you about that. But he says you won’t listen.”

“It’s depressing, Al. And I have my own shit to deal with.”

“Yeah, so he says. Top secret.”

“ _Super_ top secret,” Susan said. “ _Project Quantum Leap_ kinda top secret.”

“Uh huh,” Al said sardonically. “I get that. Even Tom gets that. But he loves you a lot. He just doesn’t know how to show it if you won’t communicate with him.”

Susan was quiet a moment. He wasn’t wrong. “The thing is, Al, it doesn’t matter how I feel about Tom or how he feels about me. I fell in love with Sam. And he fell in love with me. Ziggy even said he and I were meant to be married.”

“I got bad news for ya, kid. Ziggy also said you and Tom were meant to be married.”

“What?” Her brow furrowed. “That doesn’t make any sense. Unless she meant... I was meant to marry Tom in 1972 so Tommy would have a father, and then I was meant to marry Sam in the ‘90s.”

Al opened his mouth to argue but then closed it thoughtfully. She had a point there. But none of that mattered. “You’re forgetting something important here,” he told her. “Sam is already married.”

“Al, I’ve been wrapping presents for two hours and it’s given me time to think. Sam’s in the business of changing history, right?”

“Right....”

“So what happens to _your_ memory? If he changes something... historical. Do you remember what it was like before, or do you just have to take Sam and Ziggy’s word for it?”

“I remember,” he said vaguely. “I have two sets of memories.”

“Sam told me about Donna.”

Al nearly choked on his cigar. “He _did_?”

“Yeah. After Nana told me he was married, I casually asked him about his past relationships. He told me about the girl he’d met on the Star Bright project. How’d they’d only known each other for a month, fell in love, got engaged, and she left him at the altar because of trust issues. I’m, you know, pretty good with numbers, so it wasn’t hard to make two and two equal a leap back in time to help his girlfriend learn to trust. Am I close?”

Al was agape. “Spot. On.”

“So you’ve got two sets of memories. What happened after he did ... whatever he had to do to change her feelings toward marriage? You walk out of the Imaging Chamber and, what? There’s Donna?”

Al frowned, typed a few things into the handlink, and getting a response back from Ziggy, he answered simply, “Yeah.”

“So here’s what I figure. History number one, Sam was single and unhappy. God or whatever sends him back to Young Donna, helps her with her trust issues. Now you’ve got history number two, Donna marries Sam. But what if _that_ was the mistake? Ziggy’s odds for me marrying Tom was... what?”

“Ninety-eight point seven percent.”

“And what were the odds for Sam and me?”

“Ninety-eight point.... something.” He didn’t want to admit it was higher for Sam than for Tom.

“So there you go. Maybe my marrying Tom wasn’t a mistake any more than Sam marrying Donna was. But maybe Sam and I are _also_ meant to be married. In _this_ timeline.”

Al waved his hands in front of him. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you saying that you, Susan Blake Hunter, Uber-Catholic, believe that God Himself is orchestrating a double divorce?”

“No,” she said, “I’m saying He may be orchestrating a double- _bigamy._ ”

“What.”

“Assuming the universe is constant, then looping back on itself through time means that all things are happening at the same instant. All realities are real—just as valid as any other one, whether it’s happened yet or not. Sam may be married to dozens of women in different histories by the time this is all over with.”

“Uhhh...” This was getting a little too science-y and philosophical for comfort.

Susan took a deep breath. “Tell me the truth. When you leave the Imaging Chamber, do you _sometimes_ see Donna but other times.... there’s no Donna?”

Al nervously punched buttons on the handlink, eyeing her all the while. He drew in a deep breath to answer, glanced at the readout, and said, “I...can’t divulge... that information.”

Susan clapped her hands once in loud triumph. “I knew it! Sometimes he’s single, sometimes married to Donna. Well, then I believe he’s been sent here to create a _new_ timeline. One in which he’s married to _me._ ”

“Susan, it doesn’t work that way...”

“Sure it does. Who ever said Time was a linear concept? Maybe Time ... _is_ God. Or God is Time. And Sam is on the verge of proving His existence, scientifically.” She basked for a moment in the quiet glow of her true love’s reflected achievement before adding, “Or Hers.”

She had a scary glint in her eyes. Al had seen that look before. In Sam, whenever he had talked about the Project in its initial stages. He would have to put a stop to this. Eighty-six her plan to meet this timeline’s Sam. “Donna’s hardly _ever_ not there!” he argued, realizing how asinine it sounded. “Ziggy says in _this_ timeline, right now, Sam Beckett is married to Donna Eleese.”

“Yeah, but it’s all cyclical,” she said. “The string theory, but tied in a loop. If Sam is single when he leaps, he has to change history to get Donna to marry him. If he’s married and happy, he doesn’t have to leap back to change her history. So whatever he did to change her history _didn’t happen_ , and she leaves him at the altar.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Al said heatedly. “If that was the case, then every other time I left the Imaging Chamber, Donna would be there or not, back and forth.”

“No, Al, time isn’t digital. It flows. It’s out of our control. We don’t even know if you actually have memory of everything that Sam changes. We’re only assuming that. But we don’t have all the variables. When you’re dealing with quanta, anything is possible. Donna Eleese is _Schrödinger’s_ Cat!”

Feeling extremely sick to his stomach, Al said out loud, “Ziggy, what are the chances Susan’s onto something?” Receiving the answer, he reluctantly murmured, “Ninety percent.”

Susan relaxed and smiled a satisfied smile. “Sam might be married right this moment, according to Ziggy-in-the-future. But by the time I meet him in New Mexico, he may be on a totally different time cycle.”

“But, Susan, Ziggy also says there’s an eighty-six percent chance your meeting Sam will emotionally destroy you.”

“You’re assuming that’s because I’ll find that he’s married to Donna?”

Al nodded.

“I can take it.”

“Susan, think about what you’re getting yourself into. If you meet Sam, are you gonna tell him not to step into the Accelerator? Are you gonna get him more government funding so he doesn’t leap when he does, and maybe something crazy happens and nobody ends up leaping? And if he does leap, then where does that leave you? Abandoned by a man who doesn’t remember you exist?”

Susan looked down for a moment, then looked up at him. She saw him as clearly as she saw Sam. “Al. Are you married?”

“No.”

“Ever been?”

“Been divorced five times.”

“Ever been in love?”

A pause. “Yes. Once.”

She smiled a sad smile for him. “What was her name?”

He cleared his throat slightly. “Beth.”

“Suppose that you and Beth fell in love and on the day of your wedding, she told you she was dying. Would you still marry her?”

“Of course I would, but this is—”

“Different because Sam’s leaping isn’t inevitable. I could beg him not to go. I could warn him what would happen if he did.” She shifted her weight so they were sitting directly in front of each other. “How long have you known Sam?”

“A long time.”

“Don’t you think Sam knew what the risks were when he first stepped in there and leaped? Do you really think he’d just abandon it, given the time and energy and sweat and love he’d put into this project of a lifetime? Would he turn his back on it the moment the government arrived to pull his funds? Even knowing what would happen next? Would you trade your life for Beth’s?”

Al remained silent, staring at the floor, knowing she knew the answers to those questions.

“Sam’s number one love is Project Quantum Leap. I know that. Donna knows that. But I don’t mind being his second. And if he and I aren’t meant to be, then we aren’t meant to be. At least maybe not in this timeline. But who knows about the next?”


	21. A Puckish New Year's Eve

Friday evening

It was New Year’s Eve, and in the Blake family, that meant hockey.

Frank, Veronica, Susan, and Sam piled into the station wagon and drove up to Fort Wayne to watch the Komets play. Tommy, not an avid sports fan, stayed home with Nana. The Komets had won the Turner Cup the previous season, so the Memorial Coliseum was packed. Susan had attended hockey games religiously with her family as a child, and she was happy to see the team’s popularity had grown since then.

“This is great!” Susan said, guzzling her beer as they climbed the steps to their seats. “Floor hockey was the only thing I liked about gym class in school. I hope there’s a fight!”

“Susan!” Sam laughed, a little bit in shock.

“What? It makes me feel like I’m back in gladiator times, you know? Wouldn’t _you_ like to travel back in time, Tom? Don’t you think it would be _cool_?”

Sam feigned disinterest. “That’s never really appealed to me.”

Mr. Blake stopped at the end of the row to let the kids pass through to their seats, giving him the aisle. “Tom, you always were a pragmatic little son of a gun.”

“Why, thank you, Frank.”

During the first period, a puck took a wild hit and flew into the stands. Susan watched as a small throng of fans rose as one, their arms outstretched, grabbing for the stray puck.

“Aw, I wanna puck!” Susan said, disappointed to have missed to have missed out on the fun and opportunity for a free souvenir.

Her father, who was already on his second beer and feeling pretty darn good about himself and the world in general, put his hands to the sides of his mouth and yelled at the home team, “Hey guys! Susan wants a—”

“Dad!” Susan shrieked, laughing and grabbing his arm. “Stop! That could be misconstrued!”

“Oh my God!” he cried, his hand covering his mouth. “That’s a bad misconstruement!”

Susan turned to Sam and shook her head wryly. “This easily disproves the theory that Irish Catholics can hold their alcohol.”

Near the end of the second period, the announcer asked the spectators to check page thirty-seven of their programs to see if there was a red Komets stamp. If so, they were to report to the Information Center to participate in a shoot-off on the ice for a cash prize.

The Blake party dutifully checked their programs. Sam nearly dropped his. There was a red Komets stamp at the bottom of the page.

“Oh,” Susan said rather unenthusiastically. “Tom got the stamp.”

“Susan, why don’t you go?” Sam offered. “I was never any good at hockey.”

“Seriously?” she said, an eyebrow raised. “Was that the one sport you didn’t excel at?”

Mr. Blake laughed out loud, but missed the irony of his daughter’s sarcasm. Tom excel at sports? She was hilarious.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “You loved floor hockey in school. You do it.”

Susan left her family for the Information Center, her heart pounding. As a teenager, she had dreamed of playing the lead in the high school musicals but never had the courage to audition. Now here she was, beer-fueled, marching right toward center stage.

The contest was simple. She and the other two contestants—a twenty-something man and a middle-aged man—would each have one shot at a puck from center ice. A board was placed over the goal with a slot cut at the bottom. Each contestant had one shot to win a cash prize of $1,000.

They walked carefully and slowly across the ice to the center. Susan’s shoes were slippery and she had to be assisted by two officials. Every time she slipped, the crowd would shout and then cheer when she remained on her feet.

They drew straws and Susan drew third shot. The older gentleman took his shot and missed the slot by inches. The crowd groaned in sympathy. The younger man shot and missed the board entirely. He made a show of embarrassment that drew a big laugh.

Then Susan was handed the stick. It seemed bigger than she was. Her name was announced and it was clear the crowd had low expectations. They chanted her name in comical encouragement. “Su-san! Su-san! Su-san!”

Although she knew she was cast in the Cute Clumsy Girl trope, she’d had almost an entire large beer and decided she didn’t care. She pretended not to be able to hold the stick, she pretended she didn’t know how to hold a stick, she pretended she didn’t know where the puck was. Then when the laughter had died down, she got serious. She mentally calculated the distance and force needed, grasped the stick, pulled back and swung. The puck went quickly and squarely through the center of the slot.

The crowd erupted with joyful surprise. The announcer proclaimed her the 1994-95 season top draft pick. She received her congratulations (and her cash prize) with grace and good humor.

Returning to her seat with $1,000 in her pocket, Susan whispered close to Sam’s ear, “I still wanna puck.”

********

The drive home was a lively one. Susan was still reeling from the adrenaline rush of her performance. The Komets had won. Susan had gotten Guy Dupuis’ autograph. Sam had proven himself a hero in his own right by catching a puck single-handedly at the end of the game. Sam put the puck in his coat pocket and Susan kept asking him coyly, “Can I touch it?” But he wouldn’t let her.

The car was filled with laughter. But Susan’s father grew quiet. “Frank, what’s wrong?” Veronica asked.

“I was just thinking how almost perfect this is.”

“Almost?”

“All of us here together—but not all of us.”

Silence filled the car. Veronica finally broke it. “Christine...”

“That’s not it, Ronnie. She’s gone, I accepted that a long time ago. And it’s not Patrick, either. It’s....”

Susan’s eyes filled with tears as she realized her father was on the brink of saying a name he probably hadn’t uttered in thirty-three years. It was a breakthrough. She grabbed Sam’s hand. This might be it. He might be taken from her in the next moment.

But abruptly Mr. Blake swiped the tear from his cheek and said, “Yeah, Susan, real proud of ya out there. Never knew you had that in ya.”

Sam silently cursed him. Susan did, too, but she also felt a selfish flood of relief as she kept Sam’s hand in hers.

*******

Susan was brushing her hair while Sam sat in bed, turning the puck over and over in his hands. She set the brush down on the nightstand and crawled into bed with him. “I haven’t had that much fun in ten years,” she said.

“You were great out there. I was really proud of you.”

“Guy Dupuis said he hoped he never had to play against me.”

Sam laughed, then grew thoughtful. He held the puck out to her. “Here. You take it.”

“Oh, no,” she said, pushing his hand away without thinking. “It belongs to you.”

He drew his hand back and looked down at the puck sadly. She realized what she’d done. “Oh, Sam, I’m sorry. I’m an idiot.” Obviously he couldn’t take the stupid thing with him. It would belong to Tom.

“No, it’s OK...”

She wanted to say something make up for her comment but couldn’t think of anything. Sam graciously set the puck aside and changed the subject. “I would like my half of the prize money, though.”

“What?” she laughed.

“My half of the money,” he repeated seriously. “I have to buy you a Christmas present.”

“You don’t have to do that, Sam. Christmas is over. Tom got me a bathrobe and a book about birds of the American Midwest.” Really, she was just embarrassed she hadn’t thought to get Sam anything when she was Christmas shopping earlier in the week. Nobody had really spent any time or effort this year, given her mother’s illness and death. “Your being here is present enough.”

“Just the same. I have some shopping to do tomorrow.” He turned off the bedside lamp, gave Susan a quick kiss, and wished her a happy New Year.

“Well,” she said in the dark after a long silence. “At least we gotta puck.”


	22. A Sketchy Finale & Epilogue

Saturday

It was a new year. The next morning, Susan was up at six to watch Saturday morning cartoons with Tommy, a ritual they always resumed when he was home from medical school. She brought him his requisite bowl of Frosted Flakes and sat next to him on the couch.

“What’s on?” she asked, confused by the commercial for a cosmetic cream.

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” he answered. “But I’m watching an episode of that new Superman show I recorded.”

“Yeah, they just don’t make cartoons like they did when I was a kid,” Susan said. “Underdog. Bullwinkle. Johnny Quest.”

“Yeah,” her son agreed. “I always thought the Superfriends were cool. The Wonder Twins were awesome.”

“The Wonder Twins were lame,” she scoffed. “She was always an eagle and he was always a bucket of water. Where did that bucket come from, anyway? Was he a bucket, too, or did they keep that around to pour him into? And what was the deal with the purple monkey?”

Tommy laughed. “Mom, stop crackin’ on the Wonder Twins! Aquaman was cool, too. But Superman was the best.”

“Yeah,” Susan said thoughtfully, chewing her Frosted Flakes. “Superman rules.”

Tommy snorted. “Mom, you’re so weird.”

“Thanks.” The commercial break ended and the show came back on. “OK, Superman not only rules, he’s _hot._ ”

“Mom!”

“What? I’m old and married, I’m not blind. But who’s the doe-eyed chick?”

“That’s Lois Lane. She’s _mega_ hot.”

“Oh,” she said, rather unimpressed. “I guess she’s ...OK.”

Tommy looked at his mother. “She actually looks a little like you. When you were young, I mean.”

She glared at her baby boy. “Thanks.”

They continued to watch the program until Sam ran down the stairs. “Susan! I know where Kaitlyn is!”

Tommy, who had been lying on the couch out of Sam’s eye line, sat straight up. “How did you find out?”

Sam was startled but remained nonplussed. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’ve got to go to her. Convince her to come here.”

But Susan was staring at Tommy. “What did you mean by that?”

His face turned pink. He couldn’t believe he’d slipped like that. Sam was confused.

“How do _you_ know about Kaitlyn?” Susan demanded.

Tommy knew there was no way out of this, so he plunged ahead. “She called once, about five years ago. At first she said she was an old family friend but you two had fallen out but wouldn’t leave a name. She called a couple times after that and eventually told me she was your sister. She made me promise not to tell you.”

“Oh, Tommy, how could you keep a secret like that from me?” But somehow, she knew. Better than she would like.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I couldn’t go back on my promise. I called her and told her about Grandma. She wanted to come to the funeral but I guess she chickened out.”

“No, she didn’t,” Sam said. “I think she was here. I saw a woman who looked like you but a little older. She ducked out without introducing herself. I’ll bet that was her. She’s staying at the Fort Wayne Inn, room seven.”

Susan looked up the number in the phone book and dialed the number, asked for her sister’s room.

“Hello?” the woman answered, sounding suspicious.

Susan cleared her throat, which had gone dry. “Kaitlyn?” She heard the shaky breathing on the other end and waited patiently. When there was no answer, she asked softly, “How’ve you been, Katie?”

After a brief pause, she answered, “Not bad, Susie. And you?”

Once they’d spoken each other’s names, it was easier.

“I’m so sorry about your mom,” Katitlyn said, which threw Susan a little. Her sister no longer considered Christine Blake to have been her mother.

“I know. Thanks for coming. It means a lot to me.”

“So I guess Tommy told you where I was.”

“No, actually, I’m...married to a detective.” She smiled, remembering the story Sam had told her of the time he’d leaped into a private investigator.

Susan was surprised to learn that their parents hadn’t kicked Kaitlyn out after all. “They were just so ashamed of me, I couldn’t stand to live under the same roof,” she said. “They tried to talk me into staying, but I couldn’t face their judgement every day. So I just broke it off with them. I kept the baby and went to school. I’m a psychiatrist now.”

“Are you happy?”

“Yeah, I’m ... really happy.” The pause was not lost on her sister.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. Really sure. You don’t hate me, do you? For leaving? For not coming back when Patrick....?”

“I could never hate you, Katie. I love you.”

“I love you too, Susie Q.”

Susan looked gratefully at Sam, who smiled and looked down modestly.

She and Kaitlyn made lunch plans for that day. Tommy went with her. They picked her up at her dingy motel room and drove to their favorite restaurant from childhood. The place with the thick-cut hand-dipped onion rings. Over lunch, Kaitlyn explained that she’d moved to Baltimore after leaving home. “I had my daughter and went on welfare. When Lee started school, I got a job as a secretary and saved enough money to put myself through school.”

“Did you ever get married?”

“No.”

Susan felt proud of her big sister but also a little ashamed. She’d raised a baby and put herself through school on her own, without a man’s help. Susan had almost given up Tommy because she didn’t think it could be done.

“So, what does Lee do?” she asked.

Kaitlyn laughed. “You probably know better than I do. She works at your lab.”

“Lee _Smith_ is your daughter?” Susan’s eyes widened. “Does she know I’m her aunt?”

“No. I never told her.”

“Well, she’s beautiful. And so sweet and so smart.”

“Yes. She is...” Kaitlyn’s voice lowered slightly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Maybe nothing. I hope nothing.”

“Is she in trouble?”

“Well, I was hoping you could tell me.”

Kaitlyn explained that when Lee had started her job as a receptionist, she had seemed to enjoy the challenge and excitement of working on a top secret government project. “But then she started to pull away. She never called, and when we spoke, she was distant. She sounded almost... scared. I feel like she’d gotten into something dangerous or illegal.”

“Lee works in a different section of the lab than I do,” Susan said slowly. “And there’s no transparency between departments.” Lee’s boss also seemed a little radical the few times she’d met him, but she had no idea what they were working on. Frankly she couldn’t exactly vouch that her own project leaders weren’t involved in shady or illicit dealings.

“Has she thought about leaving DC?” asked Susan, who herself had considered doing just that.

“I suggested that. She said... she said they’d find her if she did.”

“Oh, my God!” That definitely did sound shady and dangerous. She wondered what information Ziggy could provide on the whereabouts of Lee Smith in the future.

********

Susan convinced her sister to come home with her and see Nana, who took it all in stride, having been informed by Sam that she might be coming. She took Sam by the hand and winked at him, whispering, “I’ll miss you, son. Thanks for everything. God bless you.”

“God bless you, too, Nana,” he whispered back.

Veronica, Kaitlyn, and Tommy smiled at one another, thinking Nana believed Tom was leaving. But they weren’t unduly concerned. After all, she was 99.

They sat down in the living room, waiting for Mr. Blake to come home. Susan and Sam slipped upstairs to the guest bedroom to share their last few minutes together before he leaped. She presented him with a small, poorly wrapped gift.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Just open it,” she said with nervous impatience. He did. It was the hockey puck and a gold wedding band on a chain. “Read the inscription,” she said.

_Time is an illusion._

“Einstein?” He smiled. She nodded. “It’s beautiful,” he whispered, putting his gift around her neck and kissing her like Tom never had. “I had to order your present,” he said apologetically. “It should get here in four to six weeks.”

“I think I can wait,” she said, laughing through her tears. He smiled, his eyes also filling. They clutched one another and held on tight, both of them shaking. “This is how Dad and I felt when we were waiting by Mom’s side for her to die. We didn’t know how soon, but we knew it was coming.”

“I won’t forget you,” he promised.

“I know,” she said, wanting to believe him. Suddenly her heart thudded in her chest. She had almost forgotten. “Oh! There’s something I need to ask you—”

She was interrupted by Veronica’s tense voice from the kitchen. “Your dad’s home!” In her egocentric nervousness, Susan momentarily forgot Kaitlyn’s dilemma and ran into the living room.

They all agreed later that Mr. Blake had taken the situation exceedingly well. When he walked into the house and saw everyone staring at him tensely, he thought his mother had died. But then Kaitlyn stood slowly from the couch and faced him shyly. He showed no shock at seeing her. Silently, he opened his arms to her and she ran into them, suddenly eighteen again. He whispered in her ear of the birthday cards he had bought her every year since she had left. He told her he’d always hoped she’d come home one day so he could give them to her.

Sam and Susan stood together, hands clutching each other, watching and waiting. As the time ticked on, Susan turned to Sam and whispered, “You’re not leaping yet, are you?”

Sam squinted slightly, perplexed. “I don’t think so. I think there’s still some unfinished business.”

“Good,” she said, “because I think I may know why you’re still here. I’ll talk to you about it after dinner. But when you _are_ ready to leap, let me know. I want to be holding your hand the instant you go.”

Susan wanted to test a certain theory she had about physical contact, sympathetic brain waves, and the leaping process. It fit together with some of the work she was doing on quantum teleportation on the molecular level.

********

After dinner, Susan and Veronica cleaned the kitchen while Kaitlyn chatted with Mr. Blake and Tommy. Sam went upstairs to wait for Susan.

When Susan was finished in the kitchen, she asked Kaitlyn if she minded if she drew a quick sketch of her.

“Oh, no, I’m a wreck. My eyes are bloodshot from crying, my hair’s a mess...”

“I wanna sketch you, not photograph you. I’ll draw you pretty. Please? I have everyone else in the family. It won’t be complete without you.”

Kaitlyn finally relented. Susan went upstairs to get the sketchpad and found Al in the guest room with Sam discussing their lack of theories as to why he _still_ hadn’t leaped.

“Hi, Al,” Susan said. Sam shot a look at Al, who merely shrugged. “I’m glad you’re here. I have to ask you something. I think Sam’s still here to help Kaitlyn’s daughter Lee. She works at the same lab I do in DC, and I think she’s in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” Al asked.                                                                                                        

“I don’t know, but Katie says Lee seems scared to leave. Her boss is named Yen Hsuieh-lung. I’ve met him a few times, and he gives me the creeps.”

Sam unexpectedly grabbed her arm. “What did you say his name was?”

“Yen Hsuieh-lung. Why? Do you know him?”

Sam squeezed his eyes shut and winced, trying to remember. “I think so. Al, have Ziggy run a check on him, too. Find out who he is and what his work is in.”

“It won’t be easy, Sam. A lot of that’s gonna be Code One clearance.”

“Just try.”

Veronica peeked her head in the room. “Susan, you’d better hurry up with that sketchbook. Kaitlyn’s having second thoughts.”

Susan looked back at the two men. “Go on,” Sam said.

She left the room and Sam turned to Al. “As soon as she said that guy’s name, I got the weirdest feeling.”

“Yeah, Sam, well, so did Ziggy. She’s gone spastic on me here.” He smacked the handlink a few times as if this would help clear Ziggy’s head. “Gosh, Sam, I’ve only seen Ziggy act this way a few times before.” He cautiously looked at Sam to see if he could remember on his own.

Al was wondering if this had anything to do with the so-called Evil Leaper.

The last time they’d encountered her, Sam had conjectured that someone had stolen information from their project, enabling her to leap. Al had pooh-poohed that idea at the time, but the truth was, it had him scared to death. He thought about Sam showing Susan the calculations for the project and asked him what she’d done with them.

He waved this concern away with the flick of a hand. “She ripped them up and flushed them down the toilet. Don’t worry, I saw her do it.”

“Well, Sam, what if she goes to this Yen-Hsuieh-lung guy and tells him what she knows?”

“She wouldn’t do that, Al,” he snapped.

“Yeah, Sam,” Al said contritely. “I know that.” He took his frustrations out on his handlink. “Come on, Ziggy, talk to me.”

********

Susan was in the living room and Katie was sitting in the antique chair that had been her favorite as a girl. The rest of the family had gone to the new frozen yogurt place in town. Susan was holding her sketch book and debating which pencil to use when the phone in the kitchen rang. Susan walked into the kitchen and set the art supplies down. She answered the phone and turned to Katie in surprise. “It’s for you.”

“I gave Lee your number here,” she explained, walking toward her sister. “In case of emergency.”

Susan handed her the phone and put her hand on her sister’s elbow in support. Kaitlyn brushed her off and Susan intuited that this was a conversation she preferred to have in private. She went to the basement to find some old photographs she thought Kaitlyn might like to have. She could hear her sister’s voice but couldn’t make out the words.

“Oh, my God,” Kaitlyn was saying as she nervously rubbed her pencil on the top page of the sketchbook. “You have _got_ to get out of there.... You have to try.... They’re just using you. You don’t believe in what they stand for....I’ll come get you, it’ll be all right. They can’t hurt you.”

As she spoke, she absentmindedly rubbed the edge of the pencil against the page, over the indentations made by whatever had been written on the previous pad. She didn’t notice the numbers and words showing through the lead. Words like _accelerator_ and _hybrid_. Not to mention the fragments of numerical equations that would have been completely indecipherable to her.

“Just a minute, let me get something write on.” She ripped the sheet out of the pad and turned it around. “OK, Alia. Tell me where you are.”

She folded the sheet and wrote the address and directions. Then she jotted a hasty, nearly illegible note on the next page, apologizing for leaving without warning.

As she closed the door, Sam quite unexpectedly, and without holding Susan’s hand, leaped.

 

## EPILOGUE

 

Susan heard the footsteps and the door above her, but by the time she dashed up the stairs, her sister was already gone. She ran upstairs to the guestroom where Tom was lying in bed.

“Kaitlyn’s gone. It’s something about Lee.”

He looked at her blankly as if he had just awakened from a dream. “Kaitlyn? Oh, your sister. And Lee is...her daughter?”

Susan’s heart dropped into her stomach. She would never know why he had leaped or if it meant that her niece was saved or not. She could only assume that what God had sent Sam to do had been done.

“Yeah,” she said weakly as she sank onto the bed. Tom sat up and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Susan,” he said quietly. “We need to talk.”

********

Saturday, February 12, 1994

Sam and Lee were trapped in an elevator. Susan was not there but was an unseen observer. The elevator shifted and fell a few inches. Lee began to panic. Sam tried to calm her, to hold her, but she panicked, scratching at him, leaving long, bloody gouges on his face.

_In the place of justice and righteousness, there was wickedness...._

Susan reached out for them, to save him from harm, but she wasn’t really there.

The elevator slipped again; the cables were frayed. When they snapped, the elevator plummeted to the ground. But there was no ground. They were plunging straight into Hell itself.

_Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward  
and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?_

 

The elevator would plummet for eternity. With every slip, Lee scratched more deeply at Sam’s skin until he was left almost unrecognizable.

But he didn’t flinch or cry out or try to stop her.                                         

Susan frantically looked around the elevator for a way to save them. As her eyes focused on her surroundings, she realized the elevator walls were bookshelves lined with dusty old hardcovers. She knew the solution was in one of them. She ran a hand over them and closed her eyes. Her hand grasped a book and she was surprised that she could feel it, could pick it off the shelf.

It was the Holy Bible.

_That which is and that which is to be, already has been...._

A purple ribbon bookmark hung across the cover. She opened the book to the page marked and was surprised again when she realized it wasn’t a purple ribbon at all, but a gold chain. She read the top of the page: Ecclesiastes 3. The words were jumbled on the page, of course, but she knew this one by heart.

_For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:_

_a time to be born, and a time to die;_

_a time to plant, and a time to reap;_

_a time to kill, and a time to heal;_

_a time to break down, and a time to build up;_

_a time to weep, and a time to laugh;_

_a time to mourn, and a time to dance;_

_a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;_

_a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;_

_a time to seek, and a time to lose;_

_a time to keep, and a time to cast away;_

_a time to tear, and a time to sew;_

_a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;_

_a time to love, and a time to_ _hate;_

_a time for war, and a time for peace._

 

That was the extent of her memorization, but more words began to solidify in her mind’s eye. She murmured the words like an incantation.

_God has put eternity into man’s heart, so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. There is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live...._

_Whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it...._

_Man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?_

_The second law of thermodynamics is delta-Q over T equals entropy, which is a measure of disorder. It means that entropy in the universe can increase over time but it can never decrease. Like, an ice cube will melt into water, but a puddle of water will never turn into an ice cube. A glass pitcher might spontaneously shatter into a million pieces, but a million pieces of glass will never spontaneously form into a pitcher. It basically means that by nature, time flows in a way that increases disorder, not the other way around._

********

 

Susan received a package in the mail. She opened it to find a diamond ring with the Celtic inscription _All I refuse and thee I chuse_.

She hadn’t cried since Tom had asked her for an annulment. Those had been tears of loss as much as tears of relief. Now she cried tears of joy and anticipation. And she had to laugh, too. She and Sam were so much in synch they had given each other nearly identical Christmas presents. She put her hand to the gold band that hung around her neck on a chain.

She looked through the rest of her mail and her heart skipped a beat when she saw a letter with a postmark from Stallion Springs, New Mexico. She recognized Sam’s small, neat printing. Before he had leaped, Sam had helped her craft the perfect resume and cover letter, basically spelling out for himself word for word everything he was looking for in a colleague on Project Quantum Leap.

Her hands trembling, she opened the letter, careful not to tear the space on the envelope that contained his writing. The letter was inviting her to join the project, sight unseen. No interview necessary. She smiled. Who did that? Then she remembered that Sam had told her he’d used some of her journal articles in his own research. Of course he wanted her involved.

She arrived at the complex three weeks later and was greeted by Sam himself. He seemed pleased to meet her. He shook her hand and welcomed her to the project. She fought the urge to wrap her arms around him, of course. He invited her to lunch in the cafeteria, promising her the food would be good.

It was all going so smoothly, it was surreal.

They sat and ate, and Susan found she could not look into his eyes. His expression of distant cordiality was discomfiting in the extreme. Sam took her lack of eye contact to be an indication of the shyness of a scientist unaccustomed to human contact. She felt the metal of the ring and chain against her chest. They felt cold.

Then they were joined by a very attractive, dark-haired woman. She sat down at the table with them and Sam wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Susan, let me introduce you to my wife. Dr. Donna Eleese Beckett, this is Dr. Susan Blake.”

Donna extended her hand to Susan. Susan’s hand felt ice-cold.

She could barely hear Donna’s enthusiastic welcome, telling her how excited Sam had been to receive her resume and how happy they all were to have her on the team. The blood rushing in her head was too deafening.

The lunch meeting couldn’t have ended soon enough. She shook their hands politely and excused herself to the restroom. She hurried out of the cafeteria, feeling she might actually be physically ill. On her way out, she collided head-on with a man in a metallic gold blazer and purple pants. “Whoa there!” he exclaimed. “Where’s the fire?” Then he saw her ashen face. “Oh, you gonna hurl? The ladies’ is right there.” He pointed down the hall with his ever-present cigar. Then he got a good look at her face. “What’s wrong, honey?”

His sweet concern for a complete stranger was the last straw. The tears poured freely down her face now. “It’s something I’d rather not get into right now, Al,” she told the future Observer. “You’ll understand it someday. But I still won’t listen.”

With that she was gone, leaving the man to wonder what that cryptic statement had meant and how she had known his name.

********

When she read the results of the pregnancy test, Susan understood why she had been so emotionally overwhelmed—and physically ill—on that first day on Project Quantum Leap. Lucy Beckett Blake (she kept the child’s middle name to herself) was born in September 1994. Susan remained on the project, working day and night to discover what had gone wrong—or would soon go wrong, what had introduced the randomness into the schematic, why they were unable to control where or when Sam leaped. But she could find absolutely nothing wrong with Sam’s mathematics. She increased the number of tests they ran but nothing changed.

And then came the rumblings of the government pulling their funding.

The time was now. Should she tell her colleagues the truth or let the future play out as it had in the past?

She asked herself, “What would Sam do?”

So she asked Ziggy.

*******

Susan was there when he leaped. She helped him into the accelerator. She watched him go. Gooshie would always wonder why she had seemed so calm, so resigned as Sam leaped. Until the day he leaped into Tom Hunter.

Two things kept her sane over the years. The first was Ziggy’s theory that in 14% of the possible timelines that existed, Sam and Susan were together.

The second was the knowledge that she would not rest until she had brought Sam home.

When Lucy was older, Susan would tell her who her father was. And Lucy would follow in her mother’s footsteps. Although Susan would never again wed, Lucy would marry a brilliant astrophysicist—the son of a former colleague of her mother’s in DC—Dominic Archer. After Susan’s death, their son Beckett Archer would discover several computers in Susan’s attic containing data files pertaining to her old project. He would become a leading developer in what would eventually become molecular replication technology.

But for now, Susan would continue to help the man she loved come home. It might take a long, long time, she knew. She couldn’t even begin to calculate just how long. It depended on so many different variables. Who lived and who died in Montana. Whose house was saved in Georgia and who had to move to Alabama. Who was given the courage to say those three little words in Texas and who longed to say them in Indiana but was afraid and shy.

And how many times a butterfly flapped its wings in New Mexico.

# THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam Beckett is OBVIOUSLY Jonathan Archer's ancestor, though, right?


End file.
